


The Beating of Our Hearts is the Only Sound

by the_day_that_was



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: But a lot of fluff, Coming Out, F/F, Lesbian Vanya Hargreeves, Light Angst, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Useless Lesbians, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya Hargreeves is a lesbian, no beta we die like ben, not even canon-compliant levels of incest, sorry I don't make the rules - Freeform, there will be no incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-03-07 10:31:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 43,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18871411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_day_that_was/pseuds/the_day_that_was
Summary: The world ended. Vanya Hargreeves was responsible for the deaths of billions of people around the globe, her powers converting the planet to a fiery wasteland, devoid of life. But then, the world didn't end. Thanks to a little time travel and an unconscious Vanya, the apocalypse doesn't happen. When she wakes, days after the scheduled date of the end of the world, Vanya is horrified. Her siblings attempt to comfort her, but their fear is evident. Vanya returns to her medication, ensuring that should the apocalypse ever occur, she will certainly not be the cause of it.Our story begins 6 months after that fateful day. You meet a girl in your orchestra. She's amazing- but she's broken, scarred by events in her past that she simply cannot tell you about. You connect with her, two lonely souls fostering a friendship, and eventually, something more.(I wrote this fic for myself, but hey, if you want to read it, by all means go ahead! Get ready for a lot of fluff, a little angst, and socially awkward conversations! Rating is mostly for language.)





	1. Chapter 1

Chaos: in the dictionary, defined as a state of complete disorder and confusion. In life, chaos is more difficult to define. It is the unplanned thrill of shirking responsibility to follow your each and every whim. It is coffee rings on the kitchen counter and papers scattered across an otherwise pristine desk. It is kissing a girl, wild and hungry, in the middle of a parking lot in the pouring rain. You don’t know how you feel about chaos. It can be beautiful, but it can also be messy, and you were never one who bothered to take the time to find a rare gem of beauty in a mess. Chaos, however, knew how it felt about you- it never seemed too far behind you at any given time.

Today, chaos was making itself known to you again as you rushed down the stairs of your apartment complex, cello case half buckled, stepping on the heel of your right shoe in a futile hope to force your foot into its leathery confines. Because, of course, today was rehearsal for your orchestra, and of course, your alarm had not gone off. It was no fault of your own, you certainly hadn’t accidentally pressed snooze in your sleep (at least, you really hoped that you hadn’t). It was the universe- yes! It was the universe absolutely determined to screw you over. And why shouldn’t it? It hadn’t done anything good for you for as long as you could remember, so, you think, you should really stop expecting anything at all to go your way… your thoughts begin to spiral.

Clusters of grey clouds in the sky match the storm of thoughts cycling around your head. Walking down the street with long strides, your half-secured shoe splashing in every shallow puddle, you struggle to make up for lost time. You know that you can make it to your rehearsal, just maybe, if you’re fast enough, so your pace rivals that of the bicyclists around you. The October wind nips at your face, and you suddenly realize how utterly futile a white, button down shirt and black dress pants are against the autumn chill. With tangled hair and flushed cheeks, you arrive at the concert hall. You half glance at your watch and doubletake. You are ten minutes late, they have undoubtedly begun practicing without you. Sighing, you prepare for the ordeal of walking into the theater. You know that every member of the orchestra will look at you, if not as soon as you walk in, then certainly as soon as you noisily unlatch your cello. It won’t be fun.

You tentatively walk into the building, make your way past the lobby, and as quietly as possible, open the auditorium door. Lugging your cello case through the narrow door, you scramble to the stage, earning you a glance from the entirety of the cello section and the slightly annoyed conductor, who continues to conduct as though no disturbance has occurred.

“Well, at least you only have to unlatch a single clasp,” you think to yourself, relapsing into your silent cursing of the universe. At long last, you have procured your cello. You grab your bow, place your sheet music on your stand, and jump into the wave of melody cascading through the theater, finally able to enjoy the sound now that your panic has begun to fade. You pull your bow across the strings of your instrument, feeling the soulful notes resonate within you. You lose yourself in the music; time, space, and peers all fade away as you fall into the familiar dance that is Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. It seems so sudden when the music stops, when you hear the clacking of dozens of musicians stowing away their instruments, and realize that the rehearsal is over. Already? It had only just begun! You exhale a short puff of air, then resignedly pack your cello as well.

As you are just about to leave, you notice that the theater isn’t entirely empty. Across the stage from you, one of the violinists is still sitting in her chair, meticulously turning her tuning pegs, pausing every few seconds to draw her bow across her taut strings. Nothing sounds wrong to you, but clearly, she isn’t pleased with their vibrations. You aren’t usually one to start a conversation, but something about her intent gaze, her careful motions, fills you with a desire to at least say something to her, anything at all.

“Nice violin,” you blurt out, gesturing to her completely generic violin. The same violin that you know for a fact most of the violin section has. Wood. Brown. Strings. When you thought you should say anything to her, you didn’t really mean anything!

“Um, thanks,” she responds, twisting one of the pegs just a millimeter forward. Stupid. You couldn’t have just introduced yourself? Hey, nice to meet you, what’s your name? Desperate to salvage the beginnings of what could have been a conversation, if only so that this girl doesn’t think that you’re insane, you continue.

“So, I, uh- I heard you playing last week, and you’re really good. It was beautiful,” you say, immediately regretting it. Now you’re a stalker, great. Should’ve quit while you were ahead. Worse, you were lying! You had never seen this woman in your life, as unlikely as that was, having been a member of her orchestra since April. Miraculously, she responds.

“I saw you come in late today. I mean, that’s rough. I’ve been there before. Everybody looking at you, the music stops- you just want to disappear… Anyway, does this sound right?” Thankful for the change of topic, albeit to one that still stings, you let out a hollow laugh.

“Really. It’s the worst. And yeah, that sounds fine to me,” suddenly flustered, you elaborate, “I mean, I’m not an expert, but from my limited violin knowledge, that sounds about right,” She doesn’t look at you, still gazing intently at her violin strings, gently twisting the peg ever so slightly towards you with long, nimble fingers. Seemingly satisfied, she glances at you from the corner of her eye.

“I don’t know, something felt off,” she laments to you as she opens her violin case, gently placing the wooden object into the velvet lined container. She redoes the container’s clasps, nodding slightly when the final clasp locks into place.

“I didn’t catch your name,” you blurt, the words tumbling out of your mouth on top of one another, “I’m (y/n)”

“Vanya” she responds, turning towards the exit to leave. She doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere, but there isn’t much more to say in this conversation. Still, as she opens the auditorium door, she glances back at you, which wouldn’t be quite as awkward if you weren’t already watching her leave. She shakes her head slightly and offers a half smile in your direction, if only for a second. Just like that, she’s gone now, leaving you alone in the big, oppressively empty theater. You shake yourself out of whatever stupor is keeping you on the stage, grab your cello, and follow the path that she had tread moments ago.

Back in the brisk October air, you slowly lug your cello case down the street. You may not still be dashing through puddles like you had been earlier, but the damage is done. You are exhausted. As you walk, arms weak and legs heavy, you think about the conversation that you just had. The girl, what was her name? Vanya? She won’t seem to leave your head. This isn’t entirely strange, seeing as most of the awkward conversations that you have the misfortune of participating in replay in your head for hours after they happen (and for weeks, you recall, they drift across your mind as you try to sleep- it’s a real problem for you). But this- this conversation- it was different. You cursed yourself for being so awkward. You hardly know anyone from your orchestra, and well, you had thought that maybe you could make a connection with this girl. Pushing people away is getting old, but then again, it seems you do that even without making the decision consciously. There is no way that Vanya will ever speak to you again. Hooray for being socially awkward, you suppose.

After an eternity, you arrive at the door to your complex. Nudging the door open with your shoulder, you swing your cello into the hallway, your body following the heavy case’s path. You trudge up the stairs, prop your case against the wall, and fumble for your keys. Finally you cross the threshold into your apartment. You order Thai takeout, watch copious amounts of television, and clean your kitchen (which is pristine, seeing as you never cook, but you really can’t help yourself). You do nothing, and the fact is that it’s driving you crazy. No calls, no texts, just you, your phone, and a sinking pit in your stomach, very much alone. Vanya is still at the corner of your mind, and you can’t help but wonder if you are on hers… no. You have to forget about that, for your own sanity. Let it go, then you can’t be disappointed: that’s the maxim that you usually try to live by. But this time, for some reason, it seems wrong to let it go. And what is “it” anyway? What were you really expecting to come from that conversation? Friendship, you suppose, a connection to someone. You want a connection, someone to share this nothingness with, making it less, well, like nothingness. Vanya is at the center of your thoughts no matter how hard you try to push her out, and ultimately, you don’t want her to leave them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my dudes! I hope that you enjoyed the first chapter of this fic! I have been reading fanfic for a long time, but this is my first time actually writing it. I wrote this fic primarily for myself, but I also hoped that there would be somebody out there who wanted a Reader/Lesbian Vanya Hargreeves fic as much as I did. Really, this is just an attempt to add some content to out fandom, which unfortunately seems to be dwindling out of existence due to our lack of new canon material. Anyway, I really hope that you enjoyed it, and if you have any feedback at all to give, I would very much appreciate it.  
> A couple of disclaimers. I am not a musician, so I apologize for any mistakes I made regarding musical terminology. I did my best to research it, but a lot of it goes right over my head. Also, I hope that you don't mind that I added some characterization to "you" as a character. It seemed necessary for plot progression, so surprise! You are socially awkward! If you have any preferences as to the direction you want this fic to take, feel free to offer them. I have several chapters written out in advance, so your suggestions may not appear instantaneously, but I will try to incorporate some of them, given that they make sense with what I've got planned :)


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, your alarm goes off. Wow! Has the universe taken pity on you? In ten minutes, you are out the door, cello in hand. You even have time to stop for coffee, you realize with a smile. The fall air is still cool, you note, as the breeze drifts across your face, but the puddles on the ground are mostly dry now, and the sun is shining in that just-off-bright way that it only seems to do on autumn mornings like these. It is just slightly off your path, but there is a cafe on Main Street that serves the most amazing coffee. You’ve been going there ever since Griddy’s Diner closed down last April (something about a fire, you don’t really know the whole story). You walk inside the cafe, cello in tow, and that’s when you see her. Shit. She- Vanya- is standing last in line at the counter. You have seconds to decide whether you stay (risking a repeat of that terrible conversation from yesterday) or go before she turns around, or somebody notices you, or- it’s too late. Her eyes flit back towards the door, and they lock onto yours, glinting with recognition. There it is again, that half smile, those downturned eyes. She raises her hand to offer a slight wave, acknowledging your presence. Well, too late to back away now. You take your place in line.

“Good morning, uh, Vanya, right?” you say, your fingers mindlessly rumpling your hair, shaking slightly.

“That’s me,” She fidgets with her violin case. “So, you’re not gonna be late for rehearsal today? I thought that was a hobby of yours”. Her eyes don’t meet yours, but you sense humor in her voice. Not the malicious kind that you tend to see at the forefront of every situation, but a good-humored, almost friendly type of humor. So she does remember you. Maybe you weren’t crazy. Then again, you think, maybe you should stop assuming that everyone around you is looking for a reason to dislike you. Small goals first though- you need to respond to her, before things get awkward again.

“Oh, I only come late to rehearsals on odd-numbered days, so I guess I won’t get to experience that absolute pleasure today. It’s too bad, really,” you joke. She laughs, tilting her head back slightly. Somehow, the action seems rusted, as though she never learned how to laugh, or at least is out of practice with the mechanics of it. She walks up to the counter, orders her coffee (black, with one sugar, you note), and walks to the side, apparently waiting for you to place your order. It feels nice, having someone wait for you, considering you, even though you had just met. You place your order (a coffee, one cream, and a bagel, toasted of course), and follow her to sit at a table. You lean your cello precariously against the cafe’s glass display window, while Vanya leans her slender violin case against the table’s fluted, wooden leg. Waiting for your food to come out, you think to yourself that you really ought to make conversation. Unfortunately, you realize almost simultaneously that you can’t think of a single thing to talk about.

“I’m sorry, I’m probably the most awkward person to ever exist,” Vanya breaks the silence. Now you have to laugh.

“You? I couldn’t carry a conversation if my life depended on it. Were you there yesterday… I’m appalling,” you quip, your self deprecating humor disarming your mind, if only for a moment. Surprisingly, she laughs. This time, it doesn’t sound quite as uncomfortable. A waitress delivers a tray with two coffees and a bagel to your table.

“Well, I guess we can both agree that we’re awkward. That’s a conversation, right?” She asks, looking up from her coffee cup into your flushed face.

“Yeah, I guess that is a conversation. Wow! Are we having a conversation?” You laugh, spreading a thin layer of cream cheese onto your bagel. You place the two sides of the bagel together, making a sandwich, before you cut it in half.

“Why’d you do that? It was already cut in half?” Vanya questions.

“Well, this way it’s a sandwich. Easier to eat, that’s what my sister told me, anyway. Anyway, there’s no way I’m going to be able to eat all of this,” you say, gesturing down to the abnormally large bagel sitting on your plate, “do you want half of it?”

She nods in response, and slide your half of the bagel onto a napkin, pushing the plate in her direction. “You have siblings?” she asks, obviously uncomfortable with her own question.

“Well, I have sibling. Singular. I have one little sister. I barely ever talk to her though. She was, how can I describe it- a golden child. She could do no wrong. Eventually I had to stop seeing her. It was toxic, comparing myself to her, I mean.” You don’t know why you reveal so much to her. Maybe it was the way she glanced down, eyes glazing over with the beginnings of mist, when she asked her question, maybe it was her uneasy tone when she said the word “sibling”. Letting your guard down just seemed appropriate. You feel the strongest urge to make her feel comfortable, safe, even at the cost of baring your soul just a little.

“You have no idea,” she says softly, her finger tracing the rim of her coffee cup, “I have six siblings, and for the longest time, they thought I was less than them. It was systemic, really, they treated me horribly. It’s gotten better recently, though. Things have changed, but my relationship with them is… rocky to say the least.” She suddenly stops tracing the rim of her cup, taking a sip of her drink, allowing her face to be partially covered by the porcelain bottom of the cup. Obviously, you had read her correctly.

“Families are complicated. But hey, we’re alive, the world keeps spinning. We’re more than what we come from.” You attempt to offer encouragement, lamenting both the subject matter at hand and your apparent incapacity to offer words of comfort to somebody so obviously distraught. It’s better you don’t pry, you know that, but you still want to help her. You’ve been in toxic environments before, and quite honestly, you know that you still haven’t fully healed from the damage that they caused. But you merely have scar tissue, Vanya, she seems to have still-bleeding gouges from whatever damage her family inflicted on her emotionally.

“The world keeps spinning,” she echoes. You look at your phone. Rehearsal starts in 15 minutes!

“We should get going,” you say, gulping down the last of your coffee. You grab your instruments and begin walking to the concert hall. Again, you note that walking with somebody is a nice change from your usual routine. Really, you’re starting to think that most things in life would be better with somebody to share them with.  
When you arrive at the theater (five minutes early, you are proud to add), you and Vanya take your respective seats, and soon, the music of the orchestra begins to flow over you once again. Harmonizing with the others in your section, you allow yourself to be carried away by the flow of notes, of crescendos and diminuendos, that come sweeping over you. Rising over the tide, you hear a string of sound from the violin section that sends chills down your spine. Was that.. Vanya? In an orchestra, you aren’t supposed to be able to hear a singular musician above any of the others, but Vanya? She is unmistakable. Maybe the conductor had given her a different part to play for this piece... reasons briefly swim through your head, before being quickly put to rest by your soul, telling you to stop thinking while eagerly taking in as much of the music as it can. Her music is beautiful; it resonates within you, sending swells of emotion through your chest with each pull of her bow. Her music feels raw, powerful, full of energy. You are completely, hopelessly, captivated. Still, the look on her face is concentrated, focused. Rather than letting herself loose, as you so often do when you play, she is keeping herself bounded. You wonder how powerful her music could be if she gave in, if she let herself fall into the music- it would be a wonder to behold. You notice that you have stopped playing, and quickly resume before anybody can notice.

When the rehearsal is over, you look for Vanya, still in awe. You can’t find her. After glancing over the theater, you finally see her, slipping hurriedly through the auditorium doors. You suppose that any compliments will have to wait until next rehearsal.

As you yourself walk out of the concert hall, you wonder where she could have been heading, rushing off like she had. You aren’t offended that she didn’t say goodbye, of course. That isn’t something that you had expected to happen anyhow. You did, however, hope that you would run into her tomorrow at the cafe. Maybe, just maybe, you think to yourself, you have a chance to make something out of this. It’s time to stop pushing people away, and Vanya… well, she never seems to be far from your mind anyway.  
Over the next couple of weeks, you stop by the cafe every day. You make sure to set your alarm every day so that you’ll have enough time to fulfill this new tradition, even going so far as to set it ten minutes earlier than usual- a commitment for you, who used to be a self-proclaimed queen of the snooze button. Each day, you walk through the cafe doors at 7:30 in the morning, and each day, Vanya meets you there for coffee and half of a bagel. The two of you sit there, sipping coffee and talking, until you walk together to rehearsal.

The subject matter of your conversations has evolved since you first started eating together. You certainly no longer commiserate about your mutual awkwardness. At first, you just talked about the pieces of music that you found difficult from the orchestra- the conversation about her family from your first meeting had seemed like a fluke, and you thought it was unlikely that the two of you would touch upon it again. But, as the days went on, Vanya began to open up. Rather than lamenting the struggles of Stravinsky, she mentioned how she had first learned how to play the violin. Self-taught, she had only begun practicing the instrument to fill the long hours she spent alone in her childhood. Her six other siblings were always… busy. Much too busy for her. You found it hard to imagine that anyone could ever be too busy for Vanya. Over the past two weeks you had found yourself hanging on to every word she spoke, not to mention the continued state of awe that her music left you in. When Vanya had realized that you cared enough to listen to her, she told you more about her family. Her categorization of their dynamic on that first day had been right. Their relationship was rocky at best.

Of course, you had known about the Umbrella Academy. You didn’t live under a rock, and being just two years her junior, the team of crime-fighting, superpowered kids who lived in your city was a hard phenomenon to avoid growing up. Your friends had collected their comic books and hunted down the full sets of their action figures- it was like a religion to so many of them. You, however, had always found interviews with the Academy kids to be much more interesting, it had revealed more about the psyche of the child heroes than their heroized media portrayals ever had for you.

You had never heard of Vanya, which was not altogether that surprising once you listened to her stories. Secluded from the public, isolated physically and emotionally from her siblings, made to believe that she was completely, utterly ordinary in a house where extraordinary was the benchmark for receiving any sort of attention- it was a wonder that Vanya wasn’t much more damaged than she is. You had to keep yourself from tearing up at her stories. You didn’t want to make her uncomfortable, but god, it was hard to keep the tears from coming whenever she got that lost, forlorn look in her eyes (and it didn’t help that you could empathize with her situation, either). Vanya never seemed to complain or wallow in her own self-pity. She simply stated the facts of her childhood, rarely even seeming to let her emotions get in the way of her narrative. Telling you her story seemed to be therapeutic to her.

Again, of course you knew about the tell-all. It had swept the city a few years back, igniting praise and rage from countless Umbrella Academy fans, but you yourself had never read it, nor had you been interested in who wrote it. One day you had decided to ask her about it, wondering if you should read it.

“Please don’t read that book,” she implored you, “I wrote it for myself more than anyone else” She rested her face in the palm of her hands, cheeks flushed and eyes wide. “I was angry… just trust me, don’t read it”.

Still, she had not told you much about her recent past, notable only considering that her father had died less than half a year ago, a subject which for one reason or another she didn’t want to talk about. You respected her wishes, not prying into whatever had happened over the past 6 months. You were hardly even curious. It made sense that the death of Reginald Hargreeves would bring nothing more than a sense of morbid closure to his children, especially to Vanya. You couldn’t blame her, or any of them for that matter. You probably would have felt the same.

As days became weeks, it finally seemed like you had unpacked the bulk of Vanya’s emotional baggage. Not that it was something you were eager to move past, or something that you were likely to move past entirely at any point in the near future, but once you had heard where she was coming from emotionally, it was easier to understand who she was as a person. Why she had seemed so hesitant to accept your compliment on the first day you had met her, why her default posture is ever so slightly hunched, her downcast eyes avoiding contact with others on the street. More so, it explained why she was willing to connect with you after so short a friendship. Fundamentally, she was as lonely are you were.

Now, looking at the girl sitting across from you, you are struck by how much her manner of holding herself has changed in the past two weeks. Her shoulders are held up with a measure of confidence, though you need to look closely to see it, and her smile is more genuine than forced. She eats the last bite of her bagel, chasing it down with a swig of coffee.

“Do you want to go to the concert hall now?” She says suddenly.

“Rehearsal doesn’t start for another hour, we have plenty of time,” you respond, slightly confused by her sudden desire to leave the café.

“Yeah, but there’s something that I want to do first, and I want you to come with me to do it,” she replies, sheepishly smiling. Well, of course you need to go with her now, you think to yourself, those eyes make it impossible for you to say no.

“Sure, do you want another coffee for the road? On me,” you offer. She nods quickly, and you order two coffees to go before walking out onto the street where Vanya is waiting for you. You hand her the coffee, and after accepting it, she walks ahead of you, purposefully striding to her destination. She makes her way down the street, weaving past pedestrians and cyclists, with you struggling to keep up in her wake. You find yourself on the steps of the Icarus Theater, the hall where your orchestra performs on occasion. You see a shudder run down her spine, and watch as she takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I’m sorry, I just had to get here before I lost my nerve,” she apologizes, though you recognize this statement as less of an apology than an explanation.

“No apologies necessary, Vanya. Now, what are we here to do?” You ask, moderately confused at this point. She takes out her pill bottle, the one orange container that she always carries in her pocket. She had said once that they were some sort of anxiety medication that her father had prescribed for her as a child. You’ve only rarely seen her take a pill, but she carries the container with her daily, without exception. She twists open the cap, and pours the contents of the bottle into her hand.

“No! Vanya what are you doing?” you yell, more than a little scared that she’s about to swallow the handful of pills. You consider knocking the pills out of her hand when she puts her free hand on your arm, steadying you.

“I’m not taking them. But I do need to get rid of them. Can you help me? I don’t think that I can do it alone,” she hushedly states. There’s an urgency to her voice, but her eyes are conflicted. Was that fear you saw?

“Are you sure? What if you need them?” you respond. She looks into your eyes, and after a moment, she nods slowly, her weight shifting from one foot to the other.

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Well then, what do you want to do with them?”

Together, you ascend the steps of the Icarus Theater, your hand steadying her shoulders as she carries the handful of pills clutched in a single fist. There is a trash can in the lobby of the theater, just outside of the auditorium doors. With a sense of finality, Vanya looks at you, then turns her gaze to the trash, releasing the handful of pills into the bin with a series of clanking echoes. You take the lid off of your to-go coffee, and with a circular motion of your hand, pour the remains of the beverage over the small capsules lying on the floor of the trash bin. She offers you a meager smile, and you lightly grip her forearm in a reassuring squeeze.

“You did what you had to do,” you say encouragingly. You don’t know why she needed to get rid of those pills, at the Icarus Theater of all places, but clearly it was something she felt compelled to do. Rather than looking relieved though, Vanya looks shaken. Her fingers trembling, she runs her hand disbelievingly through her hair, clutching at it at the roots, eyes wide and upturned. She looks moments away from a panic attack.

“Yes,” she takes a few shaking breaths, “I did what I had to do.” You smile at her, draping your arm around her shoulders. You nod, confirming her statement, as she leans her head against your chest. Her eyes are still blank, and you think she may begin to cry when suddenly she steadies herself. Standing upright again, she offers you a meager grin, with downcast eyes still avoiding your gaze.

“So, do you want to actually go to the concert hall now?” She asks, swinging her violin in the direction of the building.

“Yeah, that sounds good to me,” you look down at her face, trying to meet her eyes. She looks up and locks eyes with yours, offering you a nervous smile. And so, the two of you walk down the steps of the theater, leaving behind you a pool of disintegrating pills, and, unbeknownst to you, a piece of the nonexistent past, finally left to die.


	3. Chapter 3

You notice during rehearsal that Vanya looks more reserved than she ever has before while playing her violin. With hands almost trembling, her arm moves the bow across the violin’s strings with a precision that seems almost mechanical, as though she fears that one inch too far will result in the violin crumpling to ashes. Her music is as beautiful as ever, though. You have recently taken to looking at her during rehearsals, watching as Vanya gazes intently at her violin, eyes narrowed, fingers pushing down on a string, then quickly lifting and moving to another. It is much more interesting than looking at your own sheet music blankly (at this point, all of the pieces for your coming concert have been long memorized by you). Again, you wonder what would happen if Vanya truly let herself enjoy the act of playing the violin. You are certain that the music that ensues would be extraordinary, truly magical to experience.

After rehearsal is over, you plan on walking home, like you normally do, but one look at Vanya tells you that you can’t leave her alone. She looks about 30 seconds away from a panic attack: her skin is pale, her forehead is damp, and her chest is rising and falling rapidly, signaling each shaky breath she manages to inhale.

“Hey, Vanya, do you want to get out of here?” You ask her softly.

“Um, yeah. Yeah that sounds good...” She walks out of the auditorium, and you follow in quick succession. There’s a bench outside of the building shaded by a young ash tree, a spot where you have spent countless afternoons reading. It seems like the right sort of place to calm Vanya down. You walk over to the bench, motioning for her to follow you. The two of you sit down, facing forward, not saying a word. Vanya’s hands are on her knees, and you realize that she is trying to steady herself. Suddenly, she convulses in sobs. Tears run down her face, and she doesn’t bother to wipe them away. You don’t know what to do, so you do what feels instinctually right: you wrap your arm around her shoulder and pull her close to you. Vanya doesn’t recoil. She leans into your chest, her tears pooling on the fabric of your collar. And so you sit, a broken girl in your arms, for what seems like an eternity. As her sobs subside, you wipe her eyes with your sleeve. She sniffles, finally meeting your gaze.

“What’s wrong, Vanya? Do you want to talk about it?” Her eyes are bloodshot, tear tracks cover her face in salty residue. She inhales, composing herself.

“I just… I really shouldn’t have thrown away those pills. They’re never going to forgive me...” fresh tears roll down her cheeks as she continues. “I just… they still haven’t forgiven me for what happened and I just can’t… why does everything feel like so much? It’s all so, so much…” She covers her eyes with her hands, loudly exhaling.

“Hey, Vanya, whatever is going on, it is going to be ok. Ok Vanya? Just listen to me,” you assure her, “Remember how you felt this morning? You needed to throw away those pills. For whatever reason, they were hurting you. And when something hurts you, you get rid of it.” You place your hand on her forearm as she twists to look at you again. “You had to get rid of them, you made the right choice. Breathe. It’s ok.” Tentatively, she looks at you and nods. She seems as desperate to calm herself down as you are, which unfortunately seems to be making her breathing even shakier.

You take a moment to wonder what was so important about those pills. She carried them everywhere, you knew that, but you also knew that Vanya rarely took them. Ironically, now is the perfect time for some anxiety medication, assuming that is what the pills were, had they not now been sludge at the bottom of a trash bin. You push those thoughts from your head. What is most important right now is making Vanya feel safe again. You repeat affirmations to her. She did the right thing. She is going to be fine. Breathe. Repeat.

Eventually, her tears stop coming, and you stop your mantras. The two of you sit in silence. The sun is beginning to set below the city skyline, washing the sky in a deep violet hue. You look around the bench, noticing that the floor is now covered in green ash leaves. That’s funny- there hadn’t been any wind, and the floor had been clean when you sat down- but you don’t give it too much thought.

“Do you want to come back to my place? We could order Thai takeout, and watch movies all night, it could be fun!” You know that the change of your tone is jarring, but Vanya is starting to look composed, and with that composure, you recognize the mortified look in her eyes. She just bared her soul to you, more so than she had in all of your conversations about her family. That was different, she had already written all of that information down once and published it for all the world to see. If you were in her shoes right now, you would want a change of topic too, and you know it.

“Yeah,” she sniffles, “Yeah, that sounds good”. You carry your cello down the street, and Vanya, violin in tow, follows closely behind you. When you reach your apartment complex, you prop your cello case against the door. Fumbling for your keys, you get a chance to look back at Vanya for the first time since the bench. Her warm brown eyes are bloodshot, but the violet sky reflecting across her irises is striking. You unlock the door, allowing Vanya to enter the building before you swing your cello through the narrow door frame. Two flights of stairs feel like climbing Everest itself, and when you finally cross through the door to your apartment, you want to collapse onto your sofa. You can’t of course, Vanya is there, and she isn’t altogether stable quite yet.

“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable on the sofa, and I’ll make us some tea,” you say, trying your absolute hardest to infuse each word with a combination of happiness, calmness, and a nonchalant tone. You realize that you just sound insane and decide to drop the façade. You aren’t quite sure how to help her, but you will sure as hell try your hardest not to mess up.

You walk to your bedroom and grab a handful of pillows and your fuzziest blanket. You put them on the sofa, spreading them out to maximize their coziness. You walk over to your kitchen, pull out two bags of chamomile tea, and put a kettle of water on the stovetop to boil. While you wait, you look in your pantry for something to make before the Thai takeout arrives. As you had expected, it is almost entirely empty except for a couple of bags of microwave popcorn and blocks of instant ramen. You take a bag of popcorn, open up the plastic packaging, and put it in the microwave. You take out two mugs, tear the packaging off of the teabags, and plop them into their respective mugs. The microwave beeps, signaling that your popcorn is ready. You take it out, shake it, carefully pull open the top of the steaming paper bag, and pour its buttery contents into a plastic bowl. As the kettle begins to boil, you pour water into the mugs, watching as the teabags bob to the surface with a satisfying plop. You take a step back and look at your culinary offering. This is the most you’ve cooked in years.

As you walk back to the living room with the bowl of popcorn in the crook of your elbow, the handles of two mugs grasped in a single hand, you are happy to see that Vanya has indeed made herself comfortable. She has slipped out of her shoes, and is curled up in your blanket, her head resting on the joint created by the junction of the back of your sofa and one of your pillows. She still looks shaken, but then again, you hadn’t expected her to bounce back to her usual self quickly after what had just happened.  
She eagerly accepts the mug of hot tea, pulling it close to her face and taking long, slow sips of the warming beverage. You pick up your phone and scroll through your contact list until you find the number of your local Thai spot (Of course you have it saved! You need your Thai food fix). After ordering, you get an assurance that your food will arrive in 30 minutes, leaving you free to finally talk to Vanya.

“So. What do you wanna watch?” You lean back into the mass of pillows on your couch.

“I’m fine with whatever you want to watch, really,” she replies. A polite response, but not the one you really wanted to hear.

“Are you in the middle of any shows, aren’t there any movies you’ve been wanting to watch? I’m looking for some new material.” You genuinely are, and you are hoping that Vanya will recommend something to you, anything at all that you can watch together.

“I actually don’t really watch TV…” Oh! You see.

“Well, that means that I get to introduce you to the art of Netflix using! It’s an honor, really. Now tell me, have you ever heard of binge watching…”

For the rest of the night, you watch movies, eat popcorn, and pass around a container of pad Thai. Vanya doesn’t mention what had happened earlier, and you certainly don’t want to remind her. You don’t think you see her without a smile on her face all night, though her eyes remain bloodshot, her complexion abnormally pale, and a certain hopelessness stubbornly remains behind her expression. You know that she’s trying to distract herself, but you can’t bring yourself to pop the bubble of happiness that she is in right now, even though you know it will inevitably burst. The fact of the matter is, seeing Vanya laugh hysterically, curled up on your couch, watching Netflix- it just makes you happy.

As the hours grow later, you go find two pairs of sweatpants for the two of you to change into, and two oversized t-shirts. Correction: they are oversized on you, which means Vanya’s petite frame will be swimming in them. Fortunately, they fit well enough on her. Your couch is large enough for two to sleep on, but just barely. You let the white noise of the television blur into the background as you try to fall asleep. Your legs rub against hers where they meet at the center of the couch, and you don’t try to avoid them. You hear Vanya’s breathing begin to stabilize, falling into the steady rhythm of sleep. Finally, you think, she’s free from her thoughts. At least, you want this to be true with all of your heart. She deserves to rest.

As you try to sleep, you can’t stop thinking about the girl laying at the opposite end of the couch from you. You’re worried about her. The way she was sobbing, so clearly distraught, over those pills, the way she had said somebody would never forgive her, it doesn’t make sense to you. You hope silently that you hadn’t helped her do something that she’ll regret in destroying that bottle of pills. Still, she had seemed so certain about her decision, so you know that she must have had a reason for doing what she did. Conversely, you are sure she had a reason for regretting it. You can only hope that her regrets will not outweigh her motivations, for her own sake. You glance down the sofa, looking at Vanya’s curled-up, blanket smothered form from where you are lying. She looks so peaceful. For the first time since you met her, you see a face unmarked by worry, by pain. You know in that moment that you will do whatever is necessary to bring that expression into her waking hours. After all, you think, if anyone deserves that sort of happiness, it’s Vanya. Talented, quiet, broken, Vanya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up my dudes? Here is installment three! This is just a little bit of information on my writing schedule, in case you're interested. I will be updating daily for a few days, as I have several prewritten chapters, but after that, I will be updating as chapters are written, which will likely be weekly. I will try to stay on a regular updating schedule, but it's exam season, so I can't make too many promises. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, you wake up to find yourself alone on the couch. You wake with a start, grogginess fading fast as it is replaced by worry. Did she leave? In the middle of the night? Your fear dissipates as the door to your bathroom opens. Vanya emerges, your sweatpants and t-shirt folded into a neat stack in her hands. She changed back into her clothes from yesterday. Her hair is rumpled, but her eyes are no longer bloodshot. She offers you a thankful smile. Countless words are expressed in that single motion, and you think that maybe, just this once, you hadn’t messed up. You had done what you had sought out to do- to help Vanya feel safe and comfortable, and clearly, she appreciated it.

“Good morning! Do you want some breakfast? I’ve got… um, instant ramen? Actually, we could go to the cafe if you want…” She cuts you off.

“As good as that sounds, I really have to go to my apartment,” she grabs her violin case from where it sits on your coffee table, “I have a student that I’m meeting with at 10 o’clock.” Of course. You didn’t have rehearsal today, which means that Vanya has a full schedule of violin lessons to teach. 

“Oh, of course! Anyway, this was fun, maybe we could do it again some time. We only just scratched the surface of the wonders of being entirely unproductive, you still have much to learn,” you laugh. She laughs in response.

“Bye, (y/n). And thanks… thanks for everything.” She smiles at you, eyes downcast but full of appreciation, and it feels like the world stops spinning for a moment. You shake yourself out of your brief stupor to wave goodbye to Vanya as she opens your door, leaving you alone. A warm and fuzzy feeling spreads from your chest, coursing through the rest of your body, leaving your fingertips tingling and bringing an inadvertent smile to the edges of your lips. You make your way over to the sofa and throw yourself down onto the mass of pillows and blankets piled high on it. 

You allow yourself to become lost in your thoughts. You think about Vanya’s eyes, the way they crinkled around the corners when she smiled. And her smile, how over the past weeks you’ve been seeing it so often, and how amazing you feel inside whenever you get the chance to cause it. How since the moment you met her, you’d felt the strongest urge to make her feel comfortable, safe, to make that smile the only expression that ever crosses her face…

Fuck.

You know exactly what this is, you think, as you rest your face in your hands. You had gone and caught feelings for Vanya Hargreeves. No. Oh fuck. You really just had to go and fall head over heels for a straight girl! Honestly, the fact that you hadn’t recognized this earlier is a testament to your own cluelessness. You sigh. You really are a worthless lesbian.

You walk over to your kitchen, grab a cup from the nearest cabinet, and fill it with water from your fridge. You gulp it down, then pour yourself another. You proceed to your sink. You let cold water run from the tap, splashing some of it onto your face. Snap out of it! Vanya is your friend, and she is more than likely straight, so you really don’t have too many options here. You can distance yourself from her... No, you push the thought out of your head. It would just be too painful. Your only other option then, is to remain her friend, keeping her close, which you realize will be just as painful as pushing her away. You groan. 

Then again, you think to yourself, who said that Vanya was straight? She had never mentioned any exes, male or female, but that didn’t really mean anything other than that she may be private about her love life. She had been open about most other things though, and, you couldn’t deny that the way she dressed wasn’t entirely straight either. Not to play into the stereotypes, but you had literally never seen a straight woman button the top button of a collared shirt like Vanya does. You stop yourself- you could almost laugh if you weren’t so distraught. Now, you’re hinging your hopes on the way a girl buttons her shirt. That’s a new low, even for you.

Fortunately, you don’t have all day to dwell on your feelings. Being in the orchestra pays you a salary, but it is not nearly enough to cover the rent for your apartment. City real estate, you lament, is ridiculously expensive. Vanya has her violin lessons to supplement her income, and you have your tutoring service. You work for an agency that offers subject specific guidance for high schoolers. You specialize in all of them. You yourself had been somewhat of an academic when you were younger, but, to your parents’ dismay, you had been content to live as a “starving artist” (as they had termed your career), given, of course, that you didn’t actually starve. Hence the tutoring. Everything worked out in the end. 

You change into a button-down, jeans, and a cardigan, which you deem to be appropriate for work, before walking to the tutoring center. Work keeps you busy all day, but that doesn’t stop you from thinking about Vanya. Of course it doesn’t, you realize, you couldn’t stop thinking about her even before you had recognized that you like her. You decide that no matter how much it will hurt, you simply have no other option than to keep her close, remain her friend, despite your feelings for her. You care about her deeply, and making her feel happy and safe has always been your priority. Cutting yourself off from her would do the opposite.

On your way home from work, you stop at the cafe. You need a caffeine fix, mid-afternoon societal expectations be damned. You order your coffee, black with one sugar, and take a seat near the window. While you wait for the waitress to bring you your coffee, you look out onto the street. The sky is hazy, but the sun that comes through the clouds colors each leaf on the trees on the sidewalk with its own unique hue. Normally, you love days like this- days where the breeze just ever so slightly blows through your hair, and the world seems crisp and new- but right now, your thoughts are occupied. You look out on the street, when suddenly something, or should you say someone, catches your eye.

At the park across the street from where you now sit, you see a woman with long, natural hair and an unnaturally large man in an overcoat. The woman is dressed in an outfit that seems unusually fashionable for walking in the park… wait. Is that Allison Hargreeves? You recognize her from, well, almost every form of media, and of course from the stories that Vanya told you about her siblings. Which means that the man she is talking to is probably her brother Luther, which would explain his hulking shoulderspan. You know about Luther’s accident, and his subsequent transformation. Vanya had told you the story as yet another example of Reginald Hargreeves’ amazing parenting skills. From what she told you, though, this interaction isn’t typical of Allison and Luther. They are fighting. Loudly.

You can’t hear what they are saying, thanks to a pane of glass and nearly 50 yards of distance separating you from them, but Allison is waving her arms, expressing evident anger at something Luther had said to her. Luther, on the other hand, is straight faced. With arms crossed, he seems to be refusing to acknowledge whatever it is that Allison is saying, or more accurately, screaming at him. Furious at this lack of response, Allison storms off. Luther follows her for a couple of paces, until she stops, turns partially around, and fixes him with a look of such absolute scorn that when she continues to walk, he doesn’t bother to follow her. You wonder what on earth they could have been talking about.

Your phone begins to vibrate in your pocket. You pull yourself away from the altercation on the street in order to see who’s calling you. It’s Vanya. The two of you had exchanged numbers a while back, but she hasn’t called you until now. You pick up the phone.

“Hey, Vanya, what’s up?” You ask, immediately questioning if the tone of your voice sounded too eager (great, you note, now you’ll probably question every interaction that you have with her even more than you already did. Feelings are the worst).

“Um, hey (y/n). Is right now a good time?” She asks her question hesitantly, like she’s scared that she is a burden you will grow to hate. You recognize the tone because you’ve used it before, countless times in the past. Her use of it disarms you, it reminds you that the girl on the other end of the line is human too.

“Of course it is. Any time is a good time, please don’t forget that,” you implore her, “So, what do you need?”

“Can you meet me in the park? The one across from the cafe? I have something that I want to talk to you about,” she says, with an edge of uncertainty to her voice. You wonder what she wants to talk to you about, and, given the location of the meeting, if it has anything to do with Luther and Allison.

“Of course, I’ll see you in 30? Oh, and do you by chance want any coffee?” 

“God, yes please! Coffee sounds perfect,” you can sense the stress in her voice at this point, it’s practically dripping from her words, “And yeah, I’ll see you in 30!” You hang up the phone. You go to the counter and order two more coffees, this time, to-go. The barista is starting to look concerned, but she hands you your order in a drink holder with a disbelieving shake of her head. 

You walk across the street, enjoying the brisk air, and find a bench to sit on to wait for Vanya. You place the drink holder next to you on the bench, and pull your cardigan tighter around you. It is undeniably cold, even for someone who appreciates the season like you do. When Vanya arrives, you hand her the coffee, which she immediately begins to drink, tilting the cup to a steep angle for a solid five seconds. She shakes her head quickly, as though allowing the massive amount of caffeine she had just consumed diffuse, before she looks at you.

You are a little confused when she begins talking to you about her family. She doesn’t tell you more horror stories about her neglect and emotional abuse, about the isolation that had been imposed on her by both her father and siblings. Instead, she begins telling you happier stories, the type that she can’t help but look back on with a smile. She tells you about how her brother Ben had always lent her his books, and about how she and Five had always shared peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches after his training sessions. She talks about how Klaus had once tried, and failed, to teach her how to use eyeliner, and how he had always gone out of his way to cheer her up on those days that she felt like nothing in her life mattered. You laugh when she describes Diego and Luther’s prank wars, and Allison’s escapades in teaching her how to walk in heels, which had ended with Vanya breaking two pairs. The conversation feels bittersweet to you, and you can tell that Vanya feels the same. Her tone is tinged with remnants of the loneliness that she had felt as a child, but the corner of her lip twitches into an aching smile as she reminisces on the moments when she had felt wanted, even loved.

“Why are you telling me this?” You ask her, “I mean, they’re good stories, but why did you want to talk to me?”

“Actually, there’s something else that I need to talk to you about,” she begins, looking less and less sure of herself by the word, “I realized recently that I like girls… I mean, I think I’m a lesbian.”

You feel like you need to pinch yourself. This can’t actually be happening, it literally cannot be possible. Nothing this good ever happens to you. You snap yourself back to reality. The girl sitting next to you looks nervous, anticipating your response, almost as though she expects you to walk away, leaving her alone, in the state that she had spent so much of her life.

“Hey, it’s ok. Me too,” you respond, turning to face her. It feels like far too few words to say at this moment. What you really want to do is encourage her, tell her how proud you are of her for coming out, and hug her tightly without letting go. The words don’t come out. Instead, you smile encouragingly and lower your eyes, waiting for her to continue, to address what you had just said. She doesn’t immediately. Her eyes widen, and then she smiles, pulling you into a hug. You feel a tear land on your shoulder, and you can’t tell if it’s hers or your own.

“I’m sorry, it just… it feels so good to say that to somebody,” she says, pulling herself out of the hug, her hands still entwined around your forearms. Her nails are leaving impressions on your skin, but at this moment, you don’t mind.

“No apologies today, Vanya. But, why tell me stories about your family?” you say with a light laugh, wiping tears from where they had run down your cheeks. 

“I want to come out to them,” she starts, eyes downcast again, “But I don’t think that I can do it alone. Will you come with me? I didn’t want you to think that they were monsters, you know, if you do decide to come with me, and you meet them. Most of the time they really aren’t.” You are taken back by her request. Of course you want to, you know how nerve wracking it is to come out, and you can’t imagine how stressed Vanya must be. Her family hasn’t always been accepting of her. But, at the same time, to come with Vanya to do something so personal, given the fact that you have known her for less than a month, seems like an overstretch of your boundaries. You look back up at Vanya, into her eyes, which are practically pleading for you to come with her. The fact of the matter is, Vanya trusts you enough to ask you to do this for her. To deny that trust would be cruel, especially when you feel the same way about her. If you were coming out to your nightmare family, you know that you would ask Vanya for her help.

“Of course I will,” you start, genuinely meaning each word you say, “When do you want to do it?”

She takes a shaky breath. “Now… if that’s ok with you.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

“Now?” You ask, trying not to sound too surprised. You want, need, Vanya to know that you are supportive of her decision to come out to her family, but at the same time, to do it now seems rather fast. After seeing Allison and Luther fighting in the park, you aren’t sure that now is the best time for her to speak to her family at all, about any subject matter.

“I mean, if you can. I really can’t do it without you. I called all of them- my family, I mean- and I told them I have something to talk to them about,” she explains, “so they are all at the Academy right now.”

You smile in response. “Of course I’ll go with you. Now. The sooner the better, right?” You laugh, and you know that she can hear your nerves cutting through, making it sound hoarse and jagged. You curse your own emotions. She’s nervous too, but you don’t get the privilege of nerves. You need to be her support system, assuring her each step of the way that there is no reason to be afraid, a point which is hard to support when you yourself want to crawl into a ball and hide. Breathe. No more nerves, you tell yourself, desperately hoping that your own command holds.

The park is too far away from the Academy for you and Vanya to realistically walk there in this weather, so you hail a cab. You have about ten minutes before you reach Vanya’s childhood home. The thought of meeting Vanya’s siblings, you don’t know how it makes you feel. Of course, you know that Vanya loves them, and you know that she wanted you to think of them as human, hence why she had told you the stories she had told you today. But there were other stories you had heard, too. These people had ignored Vanya for her entire childhood, excluded her, forced her to grow up lonely, without hope, and had played into their father’s wishes that she be entirely excluded from their lives. They had scarred her, they had broken her. You can’t help but feel some anger towards them. You decide that your impression of them will be determined by how they react tonight, after all, you know that people can grow, you just don’t know by how much.

“Hey,” you say softly, resting your hand on her knee, “It’s going to be ok. No matter how they take this.” It’s true, but you still hope that things tonight go better rather than worse.

When you arrive at the house, you pay the fare and step out of the taxi. As the car drives away, you see a sense of finality set over Vanya. She seems rigid, firm in her resolve. Her fists clench, arms at her sides. She’s doing this, and nothing is going to stop her. You sense something else, though, in her expression. She seems… haunted. Something about looking up at the imposing facade of the Academy, you suppose. You can’t even imagine the flood of memories that must be rushing over her right now. Everything about this building seems foreboding, excluding. The door is hidden behind an iron gate, decorated with the insignia of the clique Vanya was so frequently denied access to. The building itself seems lifeless: Walls of gray stone unbroken but for oddly-spaced, dirty windows. It was obviously once a grand presence, but now, it seems misplaced, disheveled, and thoroughly depressing to behold.

Vanya pulls open the gate and stands in front of the door. She takes a breath, steadying herself. She pulls the door handle, and you follow her inside. Your first impressions of the inside of the house are the same as your impressions of its facade: an old house, once grand, run down by time. Vanya turns left, walking into what appears to be a library, or some sort of grandiose living room. That’s when you see her family.

They are bickering when you walk in. You’ve heard the names of her siblings in the past, but it’s difficult to put them to a face. They’ve obviously changed significantly since their Umbrella Academy days. There’s a man (Is that a leather crop top he is wearing? And light up sketchers?) who is sprawled across the couch, making eyes at the bar, a noticeable lack of drink in his hand. Sitting cross legged on the arm of the couch is a teenaged boy, who looks like he can’t be older than 13. On another sofa, the woman you had seen earlier, Allison, you presume, is sitting, partially reclined, avoiding eye contact with Luther, who hovers near the bar, trying equally hard to avoid eye contact with her. Adjacent to Allison sits a man in a harness of leather straps around a metal ring, which you quickly decide you don’t want to know the purpose of. They collectively stop talking when Vanya walks in, you in tow.

“Is it just me, or are any of you feeling some serious deja vu,” the man in the sketchers lilts, a laugh on his lips, “do we have another-” the teenaged boy cuts him off with a kick to the shoulder.

“Vanya, what did you want to talk to us about? Have you…” the boy pointedly looks at you before stopping his sentence short.

“No, I’m fine, with that, I mean. Everything is fine.” She assures the room, which collectively seems to heave a sigh of relief.

“Vanya, come sit down. Who is this?” Allison says, gesturing at you. She sounds almost maternal in tone.

“Um, this is (y/n),” Vanya states, walking over towards one of the ornate armchairs. You wave, and go stand behind the chair. It feels awkward to stand when everyone else is sitting, but it would be stranger to sit between Allison and harness-boy, so you stay put.

“So, what did you want to talk to us about, if it isn’t about… that,” Allison continues. You recognize that voice, it isn’t so much maternal in tone as it is attempting to be sisterly. Vanya had mentioned that things with her siblings were getting better recently. Maybe they had legitimately grown. You note that Luther has not even looked at Vanya since she walked in the room. Maybe not.

“Well, um, recently, I’ve been learning a lot about myself,” she begins, “And there’s something I want to tell you guys about.” Luther grunts. You put your hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

“Guys, I’m gay,” she blurts out the rest of her sentence, before slowing herself down to offer some sort of explanation, “I found out recently. It’s something about me that isn’t... ordinary, so it took me a little bit longer to, well, to discover.” Almost instantaneously, you see Allison tear up, her face setting itself in an expression that looks unmistakably guilty, to your confusion. The man in the sketchers stomps one of his feet against the floor, triggering his lights, and laughs. You get the feeling that he laughs at most everything.

“What else is new?” He drawls, “You look about as straight as a circle!”

Allison stands up from her seat on the couch, walks over to Vanya, and embraces her.

“Sis, I love you, you know that. This doesn’t change anything, it could never” she says, before lowering her voice to a whisper, “I am so, so sorry Vanya. You have no idea.”

“You’re our sister, and we love you. No matter what,” the teenager says, the man in the harness nodding in agreement. Even Luther walks around to face Vanya, nodding. You look down, and Vanya is smiling. Some seem to be more vocal in their acceptance than others, but the room is overwhelmingly in support of her. It strikes you that now may be the first time in Vanya’s life that she feels truly accepted by her family, and the thought fills you with happiness.

“So,” Allison stands up, pointing in your direction, “Is this your girlfriend?”

“Um, no,” Vanya quickly responds (very quickly, you note), “No, she’s a friend.”

You won’t lie- that stung. You shake your head in agreement. You know that you aren’t dating, obviously, you’ve never been on a date, but her quick dismissal of the idea of you as a couple is still echoing in your head.

“Yeah, I’m just here for moral support,” you smile, actually managing to mask your emotion for the first time all day, “I’m from Vanya’s orchestra. You should hear her play, she’s incredible.”

At that, the room goes quiet. Something is definitely going on, between the vague references to “that”, whatever “that” is, and Allison’s apology, not to mention the fight you had witnessed earlier between her and Luther. You know that it all inexplicably centers around Vanya. Still, it’s not the place or time to mention any of that, and the room soon lifts itself from its hush.

“Well, (y/n), a friend of Vanya’s is a friend of ours,” the sketchers man (who you really needed to stop calling the sketchers man, you realize), says, walking over to you, sticking his hand out in an almost comically exaggerated movement, “I’m Klaus”. You take his hand, shaking it.

The others don’t seem quite so welcoming, and look at you with apprehension. You feel like you’re on trial. Four superpowered individuals are staring daggers at you- and one of them is literally twirling a dagger as he looks accusingly in your direction. Allison, who had seemed so sisterly moments ago, is looking at you up and down. You realize that her affection had been reserved for Vanya alone. She’s protective, and one reason or another, she perceives you as a threat to her sister.

“Well, I should be going now,” you say, more nervous now than you had been on the drive here, “It’s getting pretty late.”

“It’s already dark out,” Vanya says, standing up, seemingly oblivious to her siblings’ suspicions of you, “You should stay here tonight, I insist.”

“I really shouldn’t-” you begin to respond, before she cuts you off.

“Really, I insist,” she lowers her voice and leans into your ear, “It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me today.” Hesitantly, you nod your agreement. The meeting disperses, and you follow Vanya up several flights of stairs to what you assume is her childhood bedroom. She sits herself cross-legged on the twin-sized bed, the ghost of a smile still lingering on her face. You join her, looking around the disproportionately small room, seemingly so out of place in this massive mansion.

“Thank you,” she starts, “Really, I couldn’t have done that without you. I would have been too nervous.” She shakes her head, looking down.

You look at her, sitting there, hands in her lap, and you feel your cheeks flush with warmth. The world is rotating on its axis in the wrong direction, it has to be, otherwise, how can you explain this feeling in your stomach? Emotion overcomes you, and words you have been wanting to say all day finally make their way into existence.

“That was all you, I had nothing to do with it. I am so proud of you, for coming here, for telling them…Vanya, you’re just... you’re amazing. You are probably the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met,” you lock eyes with her, “Please, I want you to remember that.” She looks down, refusing to accept your praise. Every word of it is true, and you want to let her know that however you can. Hell, you would scream it from the rooftops if it meant that she would actually believe it.

Overcome again by your emotions, you feel the necessity to move, to do something with your hands before you go crazy. You stand up and walk around Vanya’s room, looking at aging mementos from her painful childhood. You notice a small record player in the corner, and a stack of records. Music sounds nice, you think, as you take one of the records out of its casing, placing it on the turntable. You put the needle on the record, and are startled by the instant feedback of the machine. It is loud, and you jump back in surprise.

You turn the dial down a few notches, until you think that the music can only be heard by you and Vanya. It’s an old song, from the 80s you’d guess. You walk quickly to the door, shut it, and then begin to sing along to the song.

“Children behave, that’s what they say when we’re together!” You motion for her to join you. You begin to dance like nobody’s watching, except, of course, you know that isn’t true- Vanya is watching, and you’re hyper aware of it. Her hand covers her mouth to mask a giggle. You dance over to her, grab her hand, and pull her up to join you. She shakes her head lightly, but momentarily she’s dancing alongside you. She lets herself loose, twisting her arms and mouthing the words to the song. By the time the chorus arrives, you are both loudly singing the lyrics, dancing around her room like complete fools.

“Running just as fast as we can!” You practically scream into her hairbrush,

“Holding on to one another’s hand!” She laughs, pointing towards you,

“Trying to get away into the night!” You fall to your knees, imitating a performer at a rock concert. Together, you, finish the verse, yelling, “And then you put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground, and then you say…” You know that there are other people in the house, but it really does feel like you are alone, like you and Vanya are the only two humans in existence. You stop singing for a moment, allowing yourself to watch Vanya dance. Her eyes are closed, her entire body moving to the beat of the song. She looks so carefree, so happy. In this moment, you are too. You rumple your hair with your fingers, stepping back, your back falling onto her bed.

“I think we’re alone now! There doesn’t seem to be anyone around…” She jumps onto her bed, pointing at you.

You point towards the ceiling, moving your arms to the music “I think we’re alone now! The beating of our hearts is the only sound!”

Vanya falls, her body landing next to yours on the bed. She rolls to face you, her face flushed from dancing and breathless from singing. You can't help but smile at her, a laugh forming in your chest from the sheer happiness that seeing her so happy brings you. Suddenly, in that instant, her lips are on yours. Surprised, your eyes widen. It takes a moment for you to register what is occuring.

“I’m sorry,” she sounds embarrassed, “I just, I really wanted to do that and-” you cut her off, pulling her back in, craving the softness of her lips on yours. She eagerly reciprocates, and you feel her smile into the kiss. It feels like heaven. Her hand runs itself through your hair, tossling it gently, as your hand wraps around the small of her back, pulling her deeper into your kiss. When you pull apart for air, you can’t help but grin.

“Never apologize,” you whisper, as she pulls you in for another kiss. After another second, you pull yourself out with a laugh.

“So this is how you treat your friends, huh?” You quip.

“Only you,” she says between your kisses, “Besides, how was I supposed to know that you-” she is cut off by you softly tugging on her lower lip, “-that you liked me?”

“How could I not?” You tease. Hopefully, she believes you this time. You feel an incredible sensation, like raw energy washing over you. Euphoria, you assume, from having Vanya so close to you- she’s almost on top of you now. She pulls away from you suddenly, sitting up, her back pushed against her wall. She looks spooked, the haunted look in her eyes has returned.

“Hey, Vanya, what’s wrong?” You inquire nervously. It had to have been something that you did, you think. Everything had just felt so right, until all of a sudden it hadn’t.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this right now,” she says softly, her head in her hands, “I swear it isn’t you, I just…”

“Hey, hey. No need to explain,” you stroke her arm. You stand up, take the needle off of the record, and allow the room to be enveloped in silence. Vanya gets up, pulling out two pairs of sweats and t-shirts from her closet. She looks lost in her own bedroom, she is completely dazed. You also feel dazed, but in a different, decidedly happier way. The last five minutes have been a whirlwind for you. Kissing Vanya, it was absolutely incredible. You can still taste her on your lips. You understand that for some reason she needed to stop, but you still can’t help but blame yourself, despite her assurance that it was no fault of yours.

You take the clothes, going to the bathroom to change into them. By the time you come back to Vanya’s room, she is laying on a blanket on the floor, a single pillow propping up her head. You want to contest her sleeping arrangement, but her eyes are already closed. She isn’t asleep, you can tell by the labored rising and falling of her chest and the fluttering of her eyelids, but she wants you to think that she is. You oblige to her wishes, closing the door behind you before stepping over her into her bed.

You turn off the lamp, allowing the room to fade out around you. You can still hear Vanya’s shaky breathing. Leaning over the side of the mattress, you take one of the blankets off the bed and drape it over her form on the floor. Her breathing begins to regulate, slipping into some semblance of sleep. You lay on your back, looking at the ceiling. Oh Vanya, you think to yourself in the silence, why won’t you allow yourself to be happy? As the world fades away into sleep, the last thought on your mind is the soft caress of her lips, the feeling of her hands running through your hair, and her smile- her angelic smile, that could melt your heart, make the world spin against its axis, tear you apart, and build you back up again from the pieces.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Wow! That was certainly a chapter! I just want to say thank you for the reads, the kudos, and the comments. All of you mean so much to me, and it makes me so happy to know that there are people out there who are enjoying reading this work as much as I enjoy writing it. So, I'll see you again tomorrow with another update :)


	6. Chapter 6

When you wake, you lean over the side of the mattress, checking to see if Vanya is still there. You doubt it, and sure enough, your suspicions are correct. The blanket that you had draped over her last night is over your own shoulders, and Vanya is nowhere to be found. You look over at the clock. 6 o’clock in the morning? You sigh. It is far too early to be awake. Still, here you are, awake and alone in a house full of Vanya’s superpowered siblings who seem far too wary of you for your comfort. You decide to get up and look around for Vanya. After all, after what had happened last night, you don’t know what sort of state she could be in. You change out of Vanya’s clothes into your own, leaving her sweats in a folded pile on her bed.

You leave the room and make your way to the wide staircase in the central hall of the mansion. You are conscious of every step you take. You doubt that anybody else is awake. The house is absolutely silent but for the wooden floorboards creaking beneath your feet. You find your way to a room that looks like a kitchen. That is where you find Vanya.

It is evident that she didn’t get any sleep last night. There are subtle dark circles below her eyes, and she sits at the counter, hunched over a coffee mug.

“Oh, hey,” she turns around and looks at you, “Do you want some coffee? It’s instant, but Five hasn’t gone shopping this week apparently, so it’s all we’ve got right now.” You nod that you would, and she goes to get you a mug. She tears off the top of an instant coffee packet, fingers fumbling to gain traction on the plastic, and empties the contents of the packet into the mug, pouring hot water from a kettle over them. You gratefully accept the drink. It’s bitter, but it’s caffeine, and all caffeine is good caffeine. You take a few sips, allowing the coffee to do its work, and suddenly you feel like you can see the world in color again.

“So, I really want to apologize to you about last night-” she begins. You are swallowing a mouthful of coffee, but you cut her off with a wave of your hand.

“No need to explain, I completely get it. I won’t mention it, really-” now it’s her turn to cut you off.

“Really, I do need to explain. There are some things that you need to know about me, well, before that can happen again. And you might not want it to happen again once you hear them,” she says, looking at the floor. She looks nervous, and suddenly, you are nervous too. You don’t think that anything she could possibly say or do would make your feelings for Vanya disappear, but clearly, she thinks that they could. You nod your head in understanding.

“Vanya, I doubt that,” you smile through your words. If it were possible, she looks even more uneasy now than she had before.

“Please don’t say that…” she looks like she wants to crawl into herself and disappear. You put your hand on her knee.

“Well then, what do you need to tell me?”

“It’s better that I show you,” she responds, her voice catching ever so slightly mid-sentence. She is terrified. She leads you into the main hall, and takes you to an elevator, hidden away from sight. She pulls open its grate. It shines, golden, appearing almost untouched compared to the worn and aging house. She enters the elevator, and you follow. She closes the grate and pushes the only button on the elevator’s panel. With a lurch, it crawls downward. Vanya is breathing fast now, and you hear her gulp as the elevator reaches its destination. You want nothing more than to reach out and hold her hand, to comfort her, but when you try, she pushes you away. She doesn’t want to be comforted, not until she says what she needs to say to you.

Exiting the elevator, you see only a concrete hallway, lit every few steps by shaded lights. At the end of the hallway, you see what appears to be a massive metal wall, riveted in place. In the center of the massive wall is a door, locked by a wheel, almost like a bank vault. A single glass pane glints along its middle. Perfect for keeping people out, or for keeping something in. You feel uneasy, but Vanya looks like she might burst into tears.

She walks with you until she reaches the end of the hallway, then sits down cross legged on the floor in front of the vault. You follow suit.

“This is what I needed to show you,” Vanya starts talking slowly, steadying her breathing as she progresses through her words. By sheer power of will, she is calming herself down enough to explain just what it is that she is so afraid of.

“I have powers,” she continues. You want to stop her right there, tell her that of course you don’t care if she has powers, that she is perfect as she is, and that something like that is no reason for her to keep her distance from you, but she stops you before the words can come out of your mouth.

“There is so, so much more… where do I even begin? I guess I can start with the pills. My father, he started giving me those pills when I was four years old. He had observed my powers, and he decided that he couldn’t control them- he couldn’t control me- so he... blocked them. The medication was meant to dull my emotions, which were tied to my ability somehow,” so far, nothing she says changes anything to you, excepting the fact that you have never wanted to fight a dead man so badly in your entire life, “That wasn’t enough for him though, so he told Allison… he told her to use her powers to make me think that I was completely ordinary, not special in any way.”

That explains why Allison had looked so guilty yesterday, why she had apologized when Vanya had come out. She had been forced into heteronormativity by the command of her sister when they were four years old. You feel nauseated, imagining all of those years with no sense of self, forced into the paradigm of being ordinary in every sense of the word, of being drugged until your very emotions weren’t your own to control. But then, knowing about the impact that the pills had on her, why did Vanya continue to take them up until two days ago? Why had she kept them? Still, she continues to speak. You know that it won’t get better from here.

“I lived with my pills, largely emotionless, up until about 6 months ago. That’s when I met Leonard- or should I say Harold,” the tips of her ears are burning red, and you can’t tell if it is from shame, rage, or a combination of the two, “Whatever his name was, he convinced me that I was special. I fell for him. But… what he… what he was really trying to do was manipulate me into using my powers. I think his endgame was for me to use my powers on my siblings. He wanted me to bring down the Academy as payback for some sick grudge he held against them. He never got to enact it though. I killed him,” she finishes the sentence hesitantly, quietly, almost like she is scared to say the words out loud. So Vanya had killed someone. That was what she wanted to tell you about. It certainly wasn’t an ideal situation, but hearing what this man had been trying to do, it seems to you that Vanya had no other option. You understand, and you’re certain that if she told you more about the situation, you would even be supportive of her action. But she doesn’t stop there.

“But before I did that, I had done other things,” she is choking up now, the fact that tears aren’t streaming down her face is an absolute miracle brought about only by her determination to tell you the rest of her story, “There were three men, in a parking lot, that Leonard paid to attack him- to attack us- and I killed two of them. Allison… I had slit Allison’s throat, I permanently damaged her voice, and I almost… I almost killed her. I lost control, and Leonard, he took me away from her as she bled out onto the floor. I can still see it every time I close my eyes. When I killed Leonard, I already had a body count… and I didn’t stop,” her voice is wavering now. She leans back onto her hands, leaning her head back towards the ceiling, willing herself to continue.

“I went to the Umbrella Academy, desperate to see Allison, begging for forgiveness. That’s when I saw Luther. I was so desperate for them to forgive me, I couldn’t see how afraid he was. Of me. He strangled me, I blacked out. I woke up here,” she inclines her head towards the vault to your left, “Nobody let me out. I found out later that they had tried, but Luther, he insisted that I stay… in there. He was scared that I would hurt them, and I guess he had reason to think that I would. I remember screaming, pounding on the door, yelling apologies that nobody could hear. The box is soundproof. I can turn sound into blasts of energy, so dad had taken every precaution… It’s horrible in there. I spent months of my childhood there, locked away, and when I was put back into it-” she stops talking. You can understand what that would be like, to be in that box again, reliving your worst memories from an already painful childhood. She must have panicked, lost control.

“I had to get out. I did- I destroyed the cage using the sound of my own heartbeat- the only sound that was in that awful place. From then on out, my memory is fuzzy. I brought down the Academy, I killed Pogo, our butler, who had hidden my powers from me, and after leaving behind nothing but rubble, I went to play a concert at the Icarus Theater. I told you that my power is converting sound into energy… well, you can’t even imagine how much energy I pulled from the sound of my own violin. That’s all I can really remember, waves of energy washing over me, a desire to collect more, a need to play my violin. I used to play my violin to calm my nerves, but that day I was driven by a hunger. I needed more energy like I needed air. It was horrifying, like I was trapped inside another form that fed off of power and destruction, and I had no way of controlling her. But it also felt… amazing. Then, I heard a noise, a gunshot, and then, blackness. My siblings told me later that Allison had tried to snap me out of my trance by shooting a gun near my ear. It worked, but when I fell, I released all of the energy I had been siphoning. It destroyed the moon, pieces of it rained down on Earth. I caused the apocalypse,” Each word comes slowly now, dripping in aching regret. The girl from your orchestra- who played the most heavenly music, whose smile left you helpless, who was the most extraordinary person you had ever met- ended the world. You exhale shakily.

“They traveled through time back to eight days before I… before I had… ended everything. I was unconscious for the entire time. That is the only reason I didn’t cause the apocalypse,” she chokes out, tears finally beginning to roll down her face, “because I physically couldn’t. I went back on my medication. My siblings rebuilt the cage, per my request. I will not be the cause of the apocalypse, ever. I won’t let it happen. That doesn’t change the fact though, that I did cause it. I killed you. I killed everyone.” You want to lean in to her, to wipe away her tears, but your body is frozen in place. Your mind is trying to wrap itself around the two versions of Vanya it knows: the girl who is your world, and the girl who destroyed the world. You sit on the floor, looking at Vanya, whose eyes are darting everywhere but at you. Her gaze settles on the cage. That’s when it hits you. Vanya has done everything she possibly can to keep herself from causing the apocalypse again. She had never wanted to, and the fact that she did has left her broken almost beyond repair. She rebuilt the cage that was the root of so much of her childhood trauma. She had numbed herself to the world again through her father’s medication to prevent her powers from resurfacing.

“I would understand if you never want to see me again…” Vanya says through her tears, already resigned to the idea that you will walk out of this room and leave her forever. Instead, you wrap your arms around her, holding her close to you.

“We aren’t going to let that happen again, ok?” your voice is barely above a whisper.

“We?”

“Vanya, this doesn’t change how I feel about you. You’ve been through something horrible. Having to live with what you’ve lived with… I can’t even begin to imagine. But Vanya, I don’t even have the slightest desire to walk out that door. Together, we are going to figure this out. That is, of course, if together sounds good to you?” You hope that it does.

Vanya pulls herself out of your arms for a moment. You almost think that she is going to stand up, leave you sitting alone on the floor of the basement, when suddenly she presses her lips onto yours, and your thoughts fade away. Together it is. You sink into the kiss, and when Vanya finally pulls away, you can still feel the imprint of her lips tingling on your own. It takes a moment for your mind to settle, for your thoughts to return. When they do, you realize that you still have a question for Vanya.

“Why did you destroy the pills?” You understand why of course. They had been prescribed to limit Vanya’s emotions, drugging her into complacency. Still, considering that they may have been the last line of defense against the literal apocalypse, you can’t help but question.

“I had already been weaning myself off of the medication, to see how I could manage my powers without the pills. Then I met you, and I knew that I couldn’t wait anymore. I just couldn’t live without feeling any longer,” she says, cheeks flushing, “I know it was selfish, but I needed to force myself to cope. I jumped in off the deep end. I am sorry that I made you an accomplice to what may be the end of the world, but I think I did the right thing,”  she exhales an unsteady stream of breath. Of course you agree.

“And last night… your powers… something happened with them?” You ask, flushing as profoundly as Vanya now. You know that this is trivial in the scope of your conversation, but you need to know.

“My ability is tied to my emotions. And in that moment… well, my emotions were unchecked.” You remember the wave of energy that you had felt. You realize now that it had been very real, tangible energy.  You rest your hand on her thigh, leaning closer to the girl across from you.

“Hey, we’re going to figure this out. Your powers, I mean,” you say, offering her a reassuring smile. Vanya returns it with one of her own. In that moment, you see that she finally believes you. She really is extraordinary, and you hope that someday, she’ll believe that too.

 


	7. Chapter 7

For the next few days, your routine with Vanya stays the same. Each and every morning, you meet her for breakfast at the coffee shop. Together, you walk to rehearsal. Now, you notice, she looks at you while she’s playing, her eyes lingering from her sheet music to meet your gaze. Last week, she had been terrified to play, her motions rigid, never daring to feel a single emotion as she made her music. Today, her motions are still precise, but a smile is never far from her face as she moves her bow across the strings of her violin, which gives you an infinite amount of happiness. She deserves to enjoy doing what she loves. The biggest change from your routine, however, is what you do after rehearsal. Rather than walking home alone, Vanya accompanies you. It was on the couch at your apartment that Vanya first began to learn to manage her powers.

“So… I just tap this spoon against the glass, and you do the rest?” A row of cups is lined up on your coffee table in front of you. It was a struggle to find so many of the same style cup from your kitchen, but you had managed.

“Yeah, or at least, I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re supposed to do,” Vanya says, a hint of confusion present in her voice, “This is how I remember dad’s training sessions, well, from what I can remember of them, anyway.”

You tap the spoon against the glass in the middle of the row. Vanya’s eyes focus in on the glass, her face steeled with intense concentration. Almost immediately, a chorus of whining echoes emits from the cups, each stimulated into mirroring the sound of your original tap. The sound amplifies, growing in intensity with each passing second. In all of the exercises you had done, Vanya never had trouble with releasing her power- the trouble came when it was time to reel it back in. Almost as though your own thoughts willed it into occuring, all of the glasses simultaneously shatter.

“I am so sorry! Here, let me help you clean them up-” Vanya begins to apologize, her face flushed and words jumbled.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” you wrap your arm around her shoulder reassuringly. She leans her head into the crook of your neck.

“But your glasses…” She sounds so guilt ridden it could almost make you laugh.

“My glasses? Vanya, I can’t remember the last time I needed to use eight identical glasses, ever. I’m pretty sure I bought them at a garage sale. Don’t think twice, ok?” You run your fingers through her hair and kiss the top of her head. You tuck your feet up onto the couch, avoiding the glass shards on the floor. Vanya follows suit.

“I am never going to learn how to do this…” She heaves a sigh of complete exasperation and buries her face in your chest.

“Don’t say that! We are going to figure out how to control your powers. And hey, you already know how to trigger them, so you’re halfway there!” You try to encourage the girl draped over you, but she doesn’t seem to want encouragement. She sits up, her eyes still clinging to the floor.

“That’s the problem. I can’t shut it off… What if I get mad, or I get scared, or I get-” You cut her off with a kiss.

“Or I get happy! Like that! What if I lose control when I’m with you, and I hurt you, and…” her voice trails off. You smile in response.

“Did you lose control just then?”

“No, but…”

“You have already made so much progress. You can control your power when you play the violin, when we’re together, when you see your family… when you see Luther,” Knowing about her contentious relationship with Luther, what he did to her, you are constantly amazed that her eyes don’t glaze over white the moment she sees him, “You have so much more control than you think you do. We just need to practice it, ok?” She nods hesitantly in agreement.

“At least let me help you clean up this glass,” she half-smiles in your direction, leaning into your neck again.

“Deal.” You grab a dustpan and a broom from your closet. Vanya holds the dustpan while you sweep in the shards of broken glass. When you are confident that no more glass is hiding behind the legs of the couch, Vanya tips the contents of the dustpan into the trashcan in your kitchen. She knows her way around your apartment now, which brings a smile to your lips when you think about it. She makes her way back to the couch, plopping herself down into the cushions with all of her weight. She curls up close to you.

“I think that’s enough practice for today,” you say, selfishly. You don’t want to move, to ruin this moment. Even so, you know that Vanya has had enough for one day, between rehearsal and those cups. She’s exhausted. Rehearsals have been even longer than usual lately due to your upcoming concert, and you can see the toll that they have been taking on Vanya. Even if she has started to enjoy her music again, it takes a disproportionate amount of energy for her to control her powers during extended rehearsals. Between that and your mini training sessions, dark circles have started to form under her eyes. After a few moments of perfect, beautiful silence, Vanya glances up at you.

“So, I need your opinion on something.”

“What’s up?” You respond, reeling in your wandering mind to pay her your full attention.

“Well, the concert. It’s in a week. My family, well, they’ve never actually been to one of my concerts. They went to one…” She falters, only for a second, “But it doesn’t really count, because I ended the world, and they showed up unannounced and in bowling shoes.”

It always catches you off guard when Vanya mentions the apocalypse, but lately, the words hardly make an impact on you. Vanya is significantly more bothered by its mention than you are. You had come to terms with her involvement in it. Vanya, however, still blamed herself. You wish that she wouldn’t, but recovering from something like that… You know that it will take time for her to relinquish her pain, and for her to forgive herself may take even longer.

“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, should I invite them? I don’t know if that would be weird, or if it would make them nervous, or… I really don’t know,” she shakes her head resignedly.

“I think you should invite them,” you say. She straightens her posture incredulously.

“You really think I should?”

“Well, it might be weird for them, seeing you play after what happened last time, but it would also be a good opportunity to show them how much your control has improved over your powers. Vanya, you can play the violin without hurting anybody, and you’ve been able to do it for months. Plus, your siblings have never been to one of your concerts, legitimately. That’s a problem, Vanya.” There’s so much more that you could say about the fact that no single member of Vanya’s family had ever attended one of her concerts, but none of it would be anything she didn’t already know. It fills you with a deep, resounding sadness to think about how her family so blatantly ignores her talents. Because, she absolutely is talented, far too talented to think that she is ordinary. And yet, she does, and so much of that has to do with their treatment of her, both in childhood and the present.

“Ok,” she begins, a shadow of a smile starting to form on her lips, “I guess I’ll pick up my free tickets from the box office then. Oh, and will you come with me to give them to my family?” She’s clearly excited at the prospect of her family coming to see her play.

“Of course I will Vanya… but I don’t know if that’s really a good idea. For me to come with you to deliver the tickets, I mean. Your family, well, they don’t seem to like me. At all.”

“Oh… about that. I haven’t actually talked to them about us yet. I’m sure that eventually they’ll like you,” she laughs, “As much as I like you, it would be impossible for them not to. But right now, well they don’t trust anybody easily, and…” her voice begins to fade.

“They think I’m like Leonard.” There isn’t much more to be said. The realization sends a pang through your chest. It physically hurts you, because you would never, you could never, do anything to hurt Vanya. And yet, you realize, you have been doing almost exactly what he had done, with different intentions of course. Supporting Vanya emotionally, helping her master her powers… you can’t even really blame them for being suspicious. At least it means that they care about their sister. But even so, you have no endgame, and the thought of somebody thinking that you do makes you physically sick.

“Well, yes. I know you aren’t though, and eventually they will see what I see in you,” she leans over and kisses you, softly, “The sweetest, most supportive, most amazing girl I could have ever hoped to meet.” You take a shaky breath, still steadying yourself from the whirlwind of emotions accompanying someone comparing you to Leonard Peabody.

“I’ll come with you to deliver those tickets. Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, meet me at the Academy?”

“Sounds like a plan,” you say with a smile, “Now, to more serious business. What will we be binging tonight?” Since Vanya had started coming over for training sessions, you had made a habit of introducing her to the wonders of Netflix afterwards. For the rest of the night, you watch TV, eat popcorn, and completely ignore the weight of the world literally resting on both of your shoulders. It’s hard to think about the apocalypse, anyway, when there’s a pretty girl curled up next to you.

The next day, after rehearsal, you walk home alone for the first time in days. Vanya is going to pick up her family’s tickets from the box office, and you aren’t meeting up with her until later at the mansion, so you have a few hours to spend alone. Not that you want to spend any time alone. You’ve had enough time alone to last a lifetime. When you get home, you splash some water on your face and change out of your rehearsal clothes, which is essentially a change from one button-up shirt to another, less formal button up. What did you used to do before Vanya? You contemplate cleaning your kitchen, but the glaring uselessness of the act is impossible for you to ignore. Netflix isn’t the same without her. You fall into the couch, heaving a sigh of boredom.

You decide to practice your cello for the concert. You? Being productive? It’s new, but infinitely better than spending your next hour in silence thinking about how much you miss Vanya. You unlatch the case to your cello, removing the instrument with careful motions. You place your sheet music on the coffee table in front of you (you really can’t be bothered to set up your music stand) and begin to glide your bow across the strings of your cello, relishing the deep, resonating music that ensues. After a few bars, muscle memory takes over. You close your eyes, allowing yourself to fade into your music. Weeks ago, this was the source of most of the happiness in your life. Now, each stroke of the bow across your cello calls to mind newer, happier memories. Vanya’s hair under your fingertips. The soft feeling of her flannel shirt on your arm when she’s curled up into you. The feeling of her lips, like satin, on yours, when she kisses you. The brightness of her eyes when she laughs, and the way her eyes crinkle just-like-so when she smiles at you. You come to the end of the set, allowing yourself to sit for a moment, alone in your apartment, smiling to yourself. That’s one way to kill an hour.

You pack up your cello, lock your door behind you, and walk down to the curb to hail a cab. Eventually, you manage to flag one down. Ten minutes until you reach the Academy. You can’t help but feel nervous. Leonard. Fucking. Peabody. Her family thinks that you mean to gaslight Vanya into causing the apocalypse. At least, some of them think so, which is enough to make your skin crawl in protest.

When you reach the mansion, you pay the taxi driver and swing yourself out of the cab. You stand on the curb, half expecting Vanya to walk up the sidewalk. You desperately want to walk in together. No such luck. You pull open the heavy, umbrella-engraved gate, take a steadying breath, and push open the heavy front door. As soon as you walk into the grand entryway, you hear elevated voices. Was that… Vanya! You run to the direction of the noise, no hesitation, giving your mind no time to question its actions. You need to make sure that she’s ok. You find her in the kitchen. From there, it’s easy to see the cause of the altercation. Luther is there, visibly angry. The rest of the Hargreeves siblings sit quietly behind him along the kitchen counter.

“What do you mean you don’t have the pills?” Luther practically screams at Vanya. She gulps, trying to find the words for an answer. She looks terrified, but her eyes tell a different story. They are flashing with rage.

“I… I destroyed them. I couldn’t live like that any longer. I couldn’t feel anything. I needed to actually learn how to control my powers rather than drugging them out of existence!” Her fists are clenched at her sides.

“And you didn’t think to ask us about this plan of yours first?” Luther is shaking with anger.

“No, because I wouldn’t be asking ‘us’, Luther, I’d be asking you- and I knew what you would say,” her voice is trembling, and you can’t tell if it stems from fear or fury.

“Well, maybe that’s because I know what’s best for our team, and for this world!” He stops his rant for a moment to glance at the kitchen door, where you now stand.

“Did she tell you to do it? Huh? And you trust her more than us?” He lunges in your direction, grabbing you by the neck and pushing you against the wall.

“Luther!” Allison yells, standing up suddenly in protest.

“Uh, big guy, this is definitely not how we treat Vanya’s girlfriends…” Klaus hesitantly joins his sister in standing. The two of them look horrified. You struggle to breathe, feeling his fingers close in around your throat. You kick at him, but to no avail. You lurch your neck as far to the left as you can. At that moment, you see Vanya- and she’s angrier than you have ever seen her before.

Her hair is streaming out behind her, and her face is set in the look of concentration that she always wears when she is about to unleash her powers- brows furrowed, eyes narrowed in chilling focus. There seems to be no sound in the room. She is drawing from it, siphoning energy from the very vibrations in the air around you. She looks beautiful, terrifying beautiful. Luther’s eyes widen in recognition, and he releases his hand from around your neck. You fall to your knees, gasping for breath. Vanya, however, does not stop. A burst of blue light explodes from her form, and Luther is thrown against the wall where he had held you moments ago. He crumples to the ground, alive, but unconscious. Vanya walks over to you. Her motions are deliberate and slow, like those of a sleepwalker.

She kneels down to prop you up against the wall, smoothing your hair with a gentle motion of her hand. She abruptly stands again, releasing another wave of energy across the room, pushing her siblings to the floor. She turns to look at you, wordlessly. The room around you is completely silent. That’s when you see it: her eyes are completely white.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back my dudes! Sorry about the wait- daily updates are a little bit difficult to maintain during exam season. From now on, I will be updating as chapters are written, which will more than likely be weekly. I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you for the comments and the kudos. It means so much to me that there are real people out there who are reading this, and who actually enjoy it... I mean, it really is surreal. I hope that you guys continue to enjoy the story.
> 
> So, I guess you found out what it takes to push Vanya into full White Violin mode... Luther. I apologize to any Luther fans who happen to be reading this. Luther is an interesting character because he really does think that he is protecting the world, his family, and even his sister, but his actions so often do the opposite. Hopefully, none of you mind how I handled his character too much. Well, I guess I'll see you guys again next week! :)


	8. Chapter 8

“Vanya… hey Vanya, can you hear me?” Your vision is blurry, your throat throbs, and your knees feel weak, but you try to push yourself into a standing position. Vanya turns away from you. Can she hear you? You have no way of knowing. She walks out of the room, entranced by something you cannot see nor comprehend. You need to get to your feet, you need to follow her, you need to wake her up- but you can’t. Standing is simply impossible. You reach out with a single, limp arm, a desperate gesture. Its futility is not lost on you. Tears forming at the corners of your eyes, you fall back against the wall. You are helpless. Because of it, you are going to lose the one person who you cannot stand to lose, and along with her, the very world itself.

You are able to turn your head to the back of the kitchen. The Hargreeves siblings are beginning to stir, all save Luther, who still lies unconscious next to you, far too close to you for comfort. Klaus is the first one to push himself to his feet.

“Well, I suppose it’s about time for apocalypse round two” he lilts, brushing dust off of his skirt. You take in a deep breath, gathering enough air in your lungs to squeak out a response.

“No… no apocalypse. We- we can stop it,” you cough, your voice rasping, “Please, don’t hurt her…”

“We may not have that choice,” the teenage boy begins, straightening his blazer, “If it comes down to Vanya or the world… I don’t want to say it, but I need to choose the world.”

“No. Five, you remember what happened the last time we tried to stop the apocalypse. A bullet fired by Vanya’s ear was enough to release massive amounts of energy into the moon. If we shot her- which I would never let you do, by the way- that energy would still be released. Maybe directly around her, like some sort of bomb. There would be no time to travel back and fix the situation. The apocalypse could be irreversible” Allison explains, bracing herself against the kitchen counter, “I’m just being logical. We can’t lose our sister.”

You nod your head in agreement.

“Please,” you look up at them with pleading eyes, “Please, give me a chance to talk to her. To try to snap her out of this. I mean… we’ve been practicing controlling her powers, and she’s gotten really good at it, and-” Allison cuts you off.

“You’ve been doing what?”

“Vanya… she’s terrified of herself. She wants to learn how to control her ability. Desperately. I’ve been helping her, and she’s already gotten so good at it, well, most of the time…”

“And why would you do that?” Allison crosses her arms, her scornful eyes locking with yours.

“Well. Um, I’m her girlfriend...” you allow the widened eyes and sudden silence to pass before you continue, “And, ok, I know what you think about me, and there’s no real way that I can convince you that I’m not like, well, him. Leonard, or Harold, or whatever you want to call that awful man. All I’m asking for is that you give me a chance to talk to her. Let me prove it to you. Let me prove how much I care about your sister.”

Allison looks at you apprehensively. She nods. You know that she doesn’t fully trust you yet, but something in her mind has clicked into place. Her features soften as a tentative trust begins to root itself in her brain. She walks over to where you lay crumpled on the floor, and offers you a hand in getting to your feet.

“I knew it! We love a good romance, don’t we Ben?” Klaus laughs, clapping his hands together. He rolls his eyes at the air in front of him. “Ben agrees, but he doesn’t want to, you know, meet you in person just yet, so you should probably get to work averting the apocalypse, and all that jazz.”

All of the siblings have found their way to their feet, with the exception of Luther. You are amazed by how calm they look. This is their second time trying to avert an apocalypse, but you also know that their first time around had ended badly- world on fire, moon crumbling from the sky, unconscious sister, and desperately needing time travel levels of badly. Still, there is no fear in their eyes. This detachment, you think, must be a byproduct of Reginald Hargreeves. When you are raised to believe that you will one day save the world, actually saving it must seem like a normal course of action for any one of them to take.

“Do you know where she might be headed?” The man in the leather harness looks at you, twirling a knife between his thumb and forefinger.

“I have an idea, but you guys really aren’t going to like it,” you say, eyes shifting between the stares of each of the siblings in turn.

“She’s heading to the Icarus Theater, isn’t she,” Five locks onto your gaze.

“Yes, I mean, I think she is- how did you know?”

“That’s the funny thing about time travel. Her subconscious remembers what it did the first time she destroyed the world. We went back in time, but we didn’t actually fix anything. We didn’t stop the apocalypse, we delayed it. Vanya is about to hit resume on the end of the world unless we do something to alter the timeline, legitimately this time,” the boy looks at you bracing yourself against the wall, a leaning tower of tear-streaked cheeks and weak knees, “I think that you might be able to do that.”

“I’ll try.”

You walk out of the kitchen, Vanya’s siblings in tow. Before you leave the house, there’s something you need to find. You walk through the meandering hallways until you find Vanya’s room. You browse the shelves of her tiny childhood bedroom. A record player, a small stack of vinyls, scattered books- there! You find it: a violin, the violin she used when she was first learning the art of playing it. You don’t know much about playing the violin, you are certainly no violinist, but you have enough basic knowledge that should you need to use it- as you are beginning to think that you will- you can carry a tune. You open the clasps of the case, gently taking out the wooden instrument. You hold the bow in trembling fingers. You are ready to save the world. No. You are ready to save Vanya.

Time blurs as you leave the house. One moment, you and the entirety of the Umbrella Academy are sitting on the scratchy, brightly-patterned seats of a bus, and the next, you are standing at the doors of the Icarus Theater. There is no concert tonight, no events to be seen, save the extinction-level event you are here to prevent. The street is dark, and the theatre foyer is empty. You hear a tune carry itself through the building’s thick, glass doors. It is lively, quick, soulful, and, you realize with a start, electric. The song itself feels like Vanya. Your mind drifts back to that night when she had kissed you for the first time- to that wave of energy you had felt before she had suddenly pulled away. The waves of energy coming from the theatre feel the same. It’s incredible, really, how something that feels so similar to such a beautiful moment can have such drastically different implications. You push through the doors, violin in hand, ears following the reverberating melody.

As you are about to enter the theater, Five grabs your arm.

“We will be here if anything goes wrong. If that concert ends, the world goes with it. Don’t let it happen.” You nod in understanding.

You push in the door to the auditorium. Rows upon rows of seats radiate from the stage at the theater’s base. Vanya stands center stage, eyes clenched shut, playing her violin with such incredible passion that you stop for a moment, awestruck. So many times you had wondered what would happen if Vanya gave into the pull of her music, truly allowing herself to feel the pleasure of each note she plays. At long last, you have your answer, and its unquestionably beautiful, but deeply chilling. You begin to make your way down the theatre aisle. The base of the stage seems so far from where Vanya stands, miles are contained within the few yards you stand away from her.

“Vanya, can you hear me?” You tentatively speak, the sound of your voice just barely registering over the roaring violin, “Vanya! Please, hear me…”

Her eyes open. They are white, yes, but open, and you smile for this small relief. She isn’t entirely gone yet.

“Vanya, please, listen to me. I know that you don’t want to do this. Please. One time you told me that you felt trapped when, well when this happens. You can stop it, just like we practiced,” your voice is wavering now. Every second that you fail, the further Vanya slips away from you, and you are hyper aware of it.

In that moment, you hear a crash in the foyer. Wonderful.

“Luther, stop!” you hear a woman’s voice shriek.

“I need to get in there! We need to stop her, by any means necessary,” a man’s voice, unmistakably Luther’s, shouts, “Diego, what the hell- don’t stab me! Can’t you see, we need to be saving the world right now, not fighting amongst ourselves-”

“My thoughts exactly,” Allison yells, voice low in rage, “I heard a rumor that you left this building!”

You tear your attention away from the noises from outside, focusing only on the girl in front of you. You walk to the steps on the side of the stage, closing the last bit of distance between you and Vanya. You kneel down to unclasp the violin case, grabbing the neck of the instrument in your fingers.

“Vanya, I know that you’re in there. Maybe you just need a little help remembering, well, yourself. Vanya, you are the most extraordinary girl I know,” your voice is raising itself above her violin now, fighting to be heard, “You are talented, kind, just… you’re perfect Vanya. You amaze me every day. I don’t think you know what I’m saying right now, and I don’t think that you’ll remember it anyway, but Vanya… I would do anything for you. And, goddammit, I refuse to lose you like this.”

You put the bow to the strings of the violin, which screech in protest to your unskilled hands. Your fingers press down on the violin’s neck, struggling to find a chord on a scale so much smaller than your usual cello. Just breathe. Adding another instrument to this orchestra of the apocalypse will either save Vanya or fuel her, destroying everything you know. You hope for the former. You can’t fall into playing the violin as you can with your cello, but you manage to play a few notes, which blend themselves into a sort of rusted melody. It echoes through the room, a simplistic harmony to Vanya’s elaborate suite. You continue, plucking your way through the music. The sounds of your songs mirror each other, each pushing and pulling against the other, struggling its way into the air around you. Your song is loud now, almost as loud as the music flowing from Vanya’s violin. You reach a crescendo.

The doors to the auditorium swing open, and the Hargreeves siblings rush in. They are probably alarmed by your playing, you realize, but you have no time to dwell on their concerns. Vanya’s eyes widen. Her back arches, releasing a wave of pure blue energy which passes harmlessly over the theater.

She crumples to the ground, bow skidding across the hard stage floor, violin thudding against the wood without so much as a ripple of sound. The noise stops, and for a moment, the stifling stillness of the air hangs heavy around the broken girl in front of you. Suddenly, she whimpers. Biting back a sob, her head lurches forward, silent tears running down her pale cheeks. Scrambling, you run towards her, desperate to cradle her in your arms, hold her face in your chest, wipe her tears away, whisper in her ear that nothing will ever hurt her again- false, empty promises, but for her, you would lie, you would bring the goddamn roof down to protect her, to shelter her... but when you reach her, all you can muster is a hand on her trembling arm before you are overcome with sobs. You clench your hand, only vaguely aware of your nails indenting the soft skin of her forearm. You fall against her, clutching her torso. You were so close to losing her, she was almost... You can’t even fathom the end of your own thought. So you sit there, her fragile form enveloped in shaking arms, your bodies convulsing in sobs. You look up and realize that her eyes are brown again- funny, you hadn’t even thought to check, only to make sure that she was breathing, alive. You know that the thought is selfish, after all, the apocalypse may have been nigh, but even as the white violin, Vanya is worth the world. A price you would rather not pay, but one you would have paid nonetheless.

“It’s ok. I’m here. You didn’t hurt anyone. You didn’t hurt me” you whisper in her ear as tears continue to dampen the fabric of your shirt. “It’s ok. It’s ok”.

You grip her head, loosely grabbing a small fistful of her hair, placing your hand against her scalp. You can’t help it, you need to be as close to her as physically possible. She leans into you, her sobs now giving way to shaking breaths. You look up to the back rows of the theater, where her siblings are standing, desperately trying to avoid your gaze.

At last, she looks up to meet your eyes. “Nobody?” she asks, her voice wavering.

“Nobody,” you smile “Nobody, your siblings are all fine-“ She chokes back another sob. Drawing her closer, you stroke her hair. She pushes away suddenly, not wanting the comfort of your arms around her. You know that you shouldn’t push her, she needs to be alone, but god! You want to kiss her head for hours, hold her, the instinct is stronger than anything you have ever experienced before. You indicate with a tilt of your head that her family should leave. Begrudgingly, they do. You almost question your own judgement, they deserve to see their sister, but again, the situation now is too volatile, too potentially incendiary, for them to stay. But you do. For hours. You sit next to her, an arms length away from her crumpled body. She sits silently, curled up into herself, a cascade of mousy hair blocking her face from your view.

 It must be midnight when she looks at you. Her eyes are bloodshot, her complexion ghostly pale.

“Why did you come? I almost killed you... you could’ve died... god, if you had died-“ her words are stuck in her throat, her mouth not daring to contemplate what her mind had been torturing itself with for hours.

“You could never hurt me-“

“But I can! I have! I will!” She shrieks, relapsing into tears.

“You won’t hurt me. Today you didn’t...”

“Do you know what I’ve done? I have killed millions. Billions! Why... why on earth did you stay. Please don’t stay. I can’t... p-please... I couldn’t take it if...”

“Vanya. Listen to me. I know you’re dangerous. You’re the four fucking horsemen. But for me, there is no leaving you- I would die, literally die. You are my air, my soul, life itself. Vanya Hargreeves, I love you, and I’m not sorry. I will not leave your side, not now, and not ever!”

Your hands are on her shoulders now, her eyes are locked onto yours in disbelief. Before you can continue, she leans forward, her lips locking on to yours. She pushes her body against yours, reclaiming the distance she had put between herself and you only hours ago. You lean into her, eagerly reciprocating her kiss. She moves her hands down around your waist, encircling it, as your fingers run themselves up and through her hair, your wrists resting around her neck. You don’t want to let go. When she finally pulls away, catching her breath, you lock your gaze onto hers.

“We will find a way through this. Together,” you smile. Her upturned eyes, still glinting with tears, crinkle as her face morphs into a meager smile.

“I know we will. And, um, I love you too…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy almost-pride month my dudes! I am actually really excited to post this chapter. I wrote the last bit of it at 2am one night (or should I say morning), sobbing, listening to the TUA soundtrack on repeat, so I'm sure that came through just a bit in the end product. I'm kinda a disaster. Anyway, I really hope that you guys enjoyed this little chapter. Again, please forgive my musical errors. I am not one of you wonderful, talented music-folk, and despite my best efforts at research, much of the terminology still evades me. I have so much respect for all of you! Keep blowing us all away!! 
> 
> Thank you guys for reading, and I will see you all soon with another update <3


	9. Chapter 9

You listen to those words as they reverberate through your head. No other words have ever sounded so sweet to your ears, and warmth spreads from where Vanya had just kissed your lips down through the entirety of your body, leaving you feeling breathless with pure, unadulterated happiness. You push yourself to your feet, offering Vanya a hand in standing up. Almost immediately, she leans against you, her legs buckling under her own weight. Well, you suppose that almost causing the apocalypse must do that to a person. She is completely exhausted.

“I’m sorry, I just-” she doesn’t finish her sentence, placing more of her weight on your shoulder.

“No apologies. We’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime. Let me help you, ok?” You brush a strand of mousy hair out of her eyes. She gives you a meager look of gratitude, no words spoken, no words necessary. You reach down to pick up her violin, placing it with one arm into her velvet-lined case. You do the same with the violin you had borrowed from her room. You know that you should be more gentle with such precious instruments, but with a half-asleep Vanya slung over one shoulder, you’re doing the best that you can. You grab the handles to both violin cases precariously in a single hand, and help Vanya down the auditorium aisle. When you reach the street, which is pitch black but for the ebbing golden light of a few sparsely-placed street lamps, Vanya tilts her head up to meet your eyes.

“Could we,” she yawns, “Get food, or something? I’m starving.”

“Of course we can get food, what sounds good to you?”

“Waffles. Can we go get waffles?” She sounds half asleep.

“Sure, there’s a waffle place just down the street from here, if I remember correctly....” You really hope that you remember correctly. You would walk wherever she wanted- she’s Vanya, and quite frankly, you would do just about anything for her- but it’s starting to be difficult to keep her upright while clasping onto two bulky violin cases. You shift your body to the left, leading Vanya to do the same. Joints aching, you begin your walk to the waffle shop. It must be just two streets down from the theater, but in the moment, it feels like you have walked through the city’s entire grid system when you arrive at the paint covered windows of the little mom-and-pop breakfast joint. It amazes you that the shop is still open this late, but a flashing sign cheerfully indicates that your assumptions are incorrect. You push open the door with a single shoulder, almost falling into the shop’s waiting area. A bell chimes as the door clacks to a close, and you gratefully drop the two violin cases by the leg of one of the many wooden tables scattered around the floor space of the restaurant. You pull out a chair for Vanya, helping her down into the seat. She slumps down, resting her head in cupped hands. You take a seat across from her. A waitress in a frilly apron comes by to take your order.

“What are you ladies doing getting breakfast so late?” The small woman’s eyes crinkle around the edges as she smiles at you.

“There’s no better time for breakfast than 1 o’clock in the morning,” you sheepishly laugh, hoping that the woman won’t try to continue the conversation. You know that she means well, but a conversation isn’t exactly what you want right now. You do want waffles though. You want them very much.

“So, may I take your order?”

“Waffles…” Vanya mutters, inclining her head to meet the eyes of the elderly waitress.

“Could we get two orders of waffles please? And orange juice? Thank you so much…” The woman jots down your order, and with a concerned glance over her shoulder at Vanya, walks back into her kitchen.

Vanya is fidgeting with the syrup pitcher at the end of the table. You place your hand on hers, and her fingers stop their mindless motion. You rub your thumb across the length of her forefinger. It comforts you, to be able to touch her, proving to yourself that she really is there, alive and breathing, safe and sound. Your hand doesn’t leave hers until the waitress brings you your juice. She picks up the frosted glass cup, bringing it to her lips with shaking fingertips. She gulps it down, not pausing for air until every last drop of the orange liquid has been drained. Her eyes seem to open fully, recognition glinting in her irises where haze had been before. They skim over your face, a smile just starting to cross her lips, when they flit down to your neck. She sees the beginning of a hand-shaped bruise darkening your skin. Her smile dissipates.

“I’m going to kill him,” she says, glowering at the very bruise itself, ordering it to disappear by her own sheer power of will.

“You already tried, and that didn’t turn out so well. Honestly, he isn’t worth it.”

“I know… it’s just, when he touched you I couldn’t even think, I just… I will never let him hurt you again, and that’s a promise.” She brushes her fingers across the outline of the bruise. You flinch from the contact.

“Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to-” She pulls her hand quickly away. You move it back to your neck, wincing for a moment from the pressure of her palm against the outline of Luther’s fingers, but soon relaxing into the feeling of her touch against your skin.

“I’m okay. I promise that I’m going to be okay. See?”

“I know, logically, that you’re going to be fine, it’s just that, well, you should never have been hurt in the first place. If I hadn’t gotten you involved with my crazy family, hell, if I had never thrown away those pills, you would be fine right now, and-”

“Please don’t blame yourself for this. There’s only one person who can be blamed for this in any capacity, and he isn’t in this room right now. Let’s not give him any more thought than he deserves.”

The waitress is back at your table, now bringing an offering of two plates of waffles, piled high and topped with powdered sugar and berries. Vanya offers you a slight nod, acknowledging your argument, before turning her attention to the breakfast being set down in front of her. The corners of her mouth turn up in an involuntary smile. She looks adorable- looking hungrily at the food in front of her, dark circles under her eyes, a slightly delirious expression on her face as she contemplates eating her waffles- you don’t think that you have ever felt so much love for a single person in your entire life as you do in this one moment. She licks her lips and picks up her fork and knife, ready to dig into the plate in front of her, when she locks eyes with you.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” She laughs, gesturing with the utensils in her hands.

“Nothing. It’s just… you’re really fucking cute, you know that?”

She blushes furiously, casting her gaze downwards. You want to follow up your own statement with something profound, something so hopelessly romantic that Sappho herself could have said it- but you don’t. You just smile at Vanya, your face now forming that same delirious expression she had worn when she laid eyes on her waffles. As for the waffles, Vanya is already halfway through her stack by the time you are even able to register that she has begun eating. 

“Ok, is it just me, or are these ridiculously good?” She questions between mouthfuls of sweet, flakey goodness.

“No, they are ridiculously good, but I think that they may taste better to you than to me…” Vanya has already finished her entire plate. “Do you want some of mine?”

“Are you sure? I mean I really don’t need any more food, but…”

“Of course I’m sure. And yes, you do need more food. Tonight took a lot out of you, you need to eat food and stay hydrated, all of that self-care jazz,” you scrape the rest of your waffles onto Vanya’s plate, and she immediately begins to eat them, ravenously. 

When the plate is (quite literally) cleaned, the waitress comes once again with your check. She places it in front of you, you pay the bill, and you and Vanya are on your way. Standing again under the streetlights, you are struck by how much more enjoyable the moonlit street is when you aren’t carrying two violins and an exhausted woman down it. Vanya walks next to you, still visibly tired, but fortunately able to carry herself. The golden light of the streetlamps ebbs down around you, illuminating Vanya’s face in a soft, gauzy halo. You stop walking for a minute, lagging behind her already steady gait. She glances at you over her shoulder.

“Am I going too fast for you? I mean, I need to take two steps for every one step of yours, so I don’t think that’s likely,” she laughs, swinging her violin case in your direction.

“No, I’m just… taking in this moment. Taking a mental picture, I guess. Saving it for later,” you smile, a little embarrassed by your own sentimentality.

“Well, how about we make it a little bit more memorable?” She walks back in your direction, a sudden confidence to her step, and kisses you, there on the sidewalk. You smile into the kiss. You wrap your arms around her waist, pushing her against one of the lamp posts. The taste of waffles lingers on her lips, and as you push yourself against her, you note that she smells faintly of violin mingled with lemon, which is absolutely intoxicating. There is a hunger to her kiss, and you are more than happy to match her passion. You pull away, reluctantly, after what feels like an eternity. The girl in your arms looks absolutely exhausted- happy, but exhausted. Her eyes are gleaming, but they droop with fatigue that even late night breakfast seems unable to fix.

“How about we go back to my place? We can take a cab,” you suggest. As much as you want this moment to last for the entirety of the night, Vanya is far too tired for such wishful thinking. 

In the backseat of the cab, Vanya leans against your shoulder, allowing her eyes to close. You wrap your arm around her. When you reach the curb of your apartment, you wordlessly pay the cab fare and pull open the cab door, almost falling out onto the sidewalk. As it had been earlier tonight, you support Vanya with one arm as you clutch the two violin cases in the other. You trudge up the stairs and fumble for your keys, every moment spent feeling like a moment too long. When you finally close the door behind you inside of your apartment, you drop the two violins. You help Vanya into your bedroom. She practically falls onto your bed, fading into sleep just moments after her head touches the pillow. You pull your blanket up to her chin before climbing into bed next to her. You tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, leaning in to kiss her forehead as you do. The ghost of a smile is present on her face as she sleeps. It’s hard to imagine that what caused this sleep was a just-barely averted apocalypse, so you decide that you won’t. You won’t imagine Vanya ending the world. You won’t remember her up on that stage, detached from the world around her, playing her violin with a hunger for destruction, entirely consumed by rage. Choosing not to remember, to you, is the only logical option. That wasn’t Vanya. Your Vanya is here, in your bed, smiling in her sleep, kissing you under the street lamps, and eating waffles with you at one-o’clock in the morning. She wants her family’s approval, and she wants to learn how to control her powers more than anything in the world. So why, why on Earth, would you think of her in any other way?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's officially June, so you know what that means!! Happy Pride Month!! I hope that you enjoyed this little chapter. I know it isn't plot advancing, but hey, nothing wrong with a little fluff now and then, right? I'm sorry that I took a little bit longer than usual with this update. I rewrote it quite a few times. I only ever want to give you guys my best work.
> 
> As always, thank you all so much for reading! For all of you lovely folks who leave kudos and comments, I just want you to know that it means the world to me when you do!! There's nothing like opening your email and seeing that people liked your work enough to do that, and it honestly is just the most surreal feeling in the world, so I just really want to thank you all again for that. But I digress... Thank you all again for reading, and I wish you all a super gay pride month!! <3


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, you wake to the sound of birds chirping outside of your bedroom window. You allow yourself to fade into consciousness slowly. Vanya is curled up into you, and you savor the pressure of her form against yours; her head weighs heavy on your chest, her legs mingle around yours, and you can feel the rise and fall of her chest against your stomach as she breathes the soft breath of sleep. Sunlight falls through the cracks in your blinds, illuminating half of Vanya’s face in an ethereal glow. You lie still so as not to disturb her.

You don’t have any obligations today. The orchestra does not have rehearsal, which happens to coincide with a rare day on which your tutoring center is closed. You know that Vanya likely scheduled a few violin lessons, but you doubt that she intends on keeping her appointments today given what had happened last night. Almost causing an extinction-level event has to qualify as an extenuating circumstance, right? Nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to do- you smile to yourself. You would be happy to lay here all day, letting Vanya sleep, basking in the soft glow of the sun as it rises and sets on the city. You lay your head back on your pillow, closing your eyes once again. That's when you hear someone pound on your door.

You groan. With a start, Vanya jolts awake. What obligation could you possibly have that warrants waking up Vanya? More than mildly upset, you sigh, swinging your legs over the edge of your bed.

“I’ll get it, you can go right back to sleep. I’m really sorry about… whatever this is.” Vanya nods and rests her head back on the pillow.

You walk to the door, unlatch the lock, and reluctantly swing it open to face your morning visitor. On the other side of the door stands Allison Hargreeves, dressed fashionably in an outfit accessorized by eyes glinting with fear.

“I just went to Vanya’s apartment and she wasn’t there,” out of breath, she struggles to string together her sentence, “Have you seen her? Do you know if she’s doing okay?” You realize that she has run halfway across the city, from Vanya’s apartment to yours, searching for her sister. 

“Yes, she’s fine. She’s here. I’m sorry, I couldn’t let her be alone after what happened.” You sheepishly glance at your feet. How had you not even thought to call any of the Hargreeves family to let them know that Vanya was safe, with you? You curse your own oversight.

“Can I see her?”

“Of course… well, she’s asleep right now, but you can wake her up.”

Allison walks hurriedly into your apartment, and you point her in the direction of your bedroom. The sound of her high heels clacking against your wooden floor has alerted Vanya, who is now sitting upright in your bed, clutching a blanket around her up to her chin. Allison runs up to her, stopping a foot away from the bed. Tears are forming in the corners of her eyes as she opens her mouth to speak, choking on her own words.

“Vanya, I am so, so sorry. We did it again. We let you think that you were unwanted, we treated you like you were dangerous. We didn’t listen to you, we let you stay on those pills knowing damn well what they did to you… My god, Vanya, can you ever forgive us?” Vanya’s eyes widen.

“You’re asking for my forgiveness… after I was the one who almost caused the apocalypse, twice?”

“It wasn’t your fault, either time. If we had just treated you like a person- like our sister- then none of this would have happened. I wish that I could take all of it back,” mascara is dripping down Allison’s face now, streaking it black with regret and guilt, “but I know that we can’t change what we did. All I can do is swear to you that things will be better from now on. Does that sound okay to you?”

“Yeah,” she nods slightly, “but… is this coming from everyone, or just from you.” She is still clutching your blanket around her, building a barrier between herself and her sister. You can’t imagine that Vanya fully believes Allison’s words, and you believe that her sentiments reflect the rest of her siblings even less.

“Well, you’ll need to talk to them. We have a lot that we need to unpack, as a family.”

“Will Luther be there?”

“Yes.” At that, you see Vanya visibly grow tense. 

“I don’t want him there. I don’t want to see him again, ever. He can go back to the moon for all I care.”

“Vanya, he needs to be there. We’re a family, and he deserves to have a chance to reconcile with you as much as the rest of us. He really wants to talk to you.”

“Does he really? Because it didn’t seem like he wanted to talk to me all that much when he strangled my girlfriend! Or when he wanted to force me to stay on those pills! Or when he locked me in that cage!”

“Please, Vanya, give him one last chance.” Allison looks at Vanya with pleading eyes, begging forgiveness for a man who seems unlikely to beg for it himself. Vanya is reluctant to respond.

“Fine. I’ll give him one last chance. On one condition: you let me bring (y/n). I want her there.”

“I agree to your terms. Now, I’ll give you some time to get ready, then we can catch a cab to the Academy,” she turns to walk out of your bedroom, “Vanya, thank you. This is going to be a good thing, I promise.”

You don’t know whether this will actually be a good thing, but nonetheless, it seems that you will be having a sit-down with the Hargreeves siblings. So much for a day free of stress and obligations. You are suddenly conscious of your matted hair and two day old outfit (it smells faintly of waffles and sweat, which seems fitting given the thrilling saga of yesterday’s events). You had been too tired to change last night. You grab fresh clothes, taking out a set for Vanya to change into as well. You toss her the stack of clothes, laughing when they hit the headboard rather than landing in her hands.

“Ah, sorry, that was a bad throw!” You fall onto the bed, your head landing on Vanya’s lap. She runs her fingers through your hair as you lay there, laughing for no reason in particular.

“That was perfect. I mean, when you throw anything, you always want it to land three feet to the left of your intended target, right?” 

“Oh yeah! I forgot about that. I should go pro… be a pro clothes-tosser. That’s a thing for sure,” you look up at Vanya, who is laughing hysterically for reasons largely unknown to you. Maybe it’s relief from having averted the apocalypse, maybe it’s happiness at the thought of reconciliation with her family. Maybe it really just is at your complete and utter lack of athletic ability. Whatever the reason is, you are ultimately just happy that Vanya is happy. You rock yourself into a sitting position.

“Vanya, are you sure that this is a good idea? Talking to Luther, I mean. I know that your family says that they want to reconcile with you, but what if when you get there… what if they hurt you? What if they put you back in the cage, or force you to take your medication again? I can’t let them hurt you, but there’s nothing that I can do to protect you from them if something did happen-” Vanya smiles, cutting you off by placing a finger to your lips.

“First- I love you, and it’s really fucking adorable that you’re worried about me. But, I think that I would be able to handle myself against Luther, or any of my siblings, really, if they tried to do any of those things to me. I don’t think that they would, though. Allison… she really does mean well. Five, Diego, Klaus- I don’t think that they would intentionally hurt me either. Luther is another story, but if he really does have something to say to me, I’ll let him say it. But I swear, if he touches you, if he so much as steps in your direction, I will knock moon-boy on his ass so fast that he won’t even have time to shoot Allison one of his longing-looks.” You can’t help but grin at Vanya’s response, quickly pecking her lips.

“Bold of you to assume that I wouldn’t help you knock him out.” It’s true. You may not have super powers, but punching Luther Hargreeves in the throat would bring you an immense amount of pleasure. You and Vanya both quickly change into fresh clothes and meet Allison in your living room.

“Um, do you want something to eat,” You are suddenly conscious of your apartment’s dingy interior and your utter lack of food in the kitchen, “Or, er, drink? I have some coffee… tea… instant ramen…” Allison smiles courteously at you, a small miracle, you think, considering that you just offered her instant ramen for breakfast.

“No, thank you, the cab is on its way right now. In fact,” she glances down at her phone, “It should be here any second now.”

You leave your apartment as a trio, walking wordlessly down several flights of stairs to the ground floor of your building. Still without conversation, you enter the cab, and drive noiselessly to Vanya’s childhood home. 

When you arrive at the Academy, you note that it is still as foreboding as ever. Unapproachable stone walls containing unapproachable stone individuals. Unapproachable stone individuals, you realize, who now intend to reverse a life worth of neglect and exclusion within a single afternoon. You look over at Vanya. Her eyes dart from window to window on the façade of the building, and her hands are trembling, a fact which she is attempting to hide by furling them into small fists. You reach out to hold her hand, and she accepts, entwining her fingers with yours. They stop shaking.

Allison pushes open the umbrella-engraved gate, leading you and Vanya into the mansion. She leads you up the stairs, down several meandering hallways, and into the room which you had presumed to be the kitchen. All of the siblings have taken a place at the kitchen table, including Luther, who sits at the far end of the table, thankfully away from any open seats. Despite his hulking presence, he seems today to be closing in on himself, with his back hunched and eyes directed downward. Vanya pulls out a chair, and you follow suit. Allison stands at the head of the table, perched to speak. There is something undeniably powerful about her presence, as though she is the only barrier between silence and absolute chaos in the room.

“So, we are all here today to talk about what happened yesterday, or more accurately, what almost happened yesterday. More importantly, we need to talk about how we- how ALL of us,” she shoots a pointed glare at Luther, who seems to shrink even deeper into himself, “reacted to it. And, how we caused it.” There is a complete hush over the room. No one quips, no one argues. After what feels like an eternity of intolerable silence, Klaus speaks.

“Well, if nobody is gonna say it, then I will. If we treated Vanya, our sister, like a human being, then none of this would have happened. So what if she’s dangerous! I mean, all of us are dangerous. Diego-” he looks at the man brooding to his left, “You’ve been killing people with your knives since you were eleven years old, and Allison,” he gestures towards the woman at the head of the table, “I’m pretty sure that you’re omnipotent! And Five!” He is standing now, laughing hysterically, “Five! I recall that you once told us about taking out an entire task force sent to kill you in a diner! Need I go on? My point is, we have all had years and years of training to master our abilities. For some of us,” you note that the laughter leaves his face now, “It took our whole lives. It took me until… last April, really, to learn how to manage my ability. So, why the hell aren’t we helping her?” Diego nods his agreement.

“I’ll be the first to say that Vanya is a piece of work. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s our sister, and she deserves to use her power,” he stares daggers at Luther, “and live her life without being drugged.” Luther looks up, meeting Diego’s stare.

“I understand that all of you are against me on this. But please, can you look at the facts? None of us are capable of causing an apocalypse- only her. That makes Vanya a danger to herself, to our family, and the world,” You clutch Vanya’s hand, which has begun shaking again, “If memory serves, when she woke up from her coma, she was the one who chose to go back onto her medication! And, she was the one who made sure that there was a place to contain her should she be a threat again! That wasn’t me- it was her. Make me out to be a villain all you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am looking out for the world, and I am the only one who is really looking after our sister!” You push back your chair and rise to your feet, rage coursing through your veins.

“You’re the only one looking out for Vanya? Have you even bothered to ask her how she wants to handle her powers? Because if you did, you would know that those drugs were a prison to her as surely as your fucking basement box is! And still, she was willing to endure both in order to protect the world, because that’s how much she cares about you- her family. Why the hell would she imprison herself- emotionally, physically, mentally- when she can learn how to manage her powers herself, you absolute fucking-” You are cut off by sobs beginning to rise from deep within your chest. You have never been skilled at arguing without crying, and looking at Luther, claiming that he was looking out for Vanya… it fills you with such pure, intense fury that you can not contain your tears. You fall back into your seat, heart pounding fast. Vanya wraps her arm around your shoulders, and with an almost chilling calmness in her voice, addresses Luther.

“Luther, I know that you are trying to save the world. That’s what dad raised you to do. I might even actually believe that you’re trying to protect me. Let me tell you though, you aren’t. When I went back on those pills, hell, when I did everything I did when I came out of the coma, I was afraid of myself. I’m still afraid of my powers, yes, but I’m not afraid of myself like I used to be. It sounds crazy, I know, and I don’t think that you’ll ever really understand what I’m trying to say. What I guess I’m trying to get at is, I don’t need those pills like I used to. It’s time for me to control my powers, really control them, not suppress them,” she smiles at you, “And I actually think that I’m making progress already.”

“But- you’re an emotional time bomb! Are we really going to ignore the fact that the world came really close to ending last night? Is that really progress? She could be triggered by anything, and what if next time, this girl,” he gestures at you, “Isn’t around to stop her? Hell, what if she ends up being the trigger, and-” Luther looks indignantly around the room as he is cut off by Vanya.

“You have no idea how much I regret what happened last night. I don’t think that I will ever forgive myself for the role that I played in the apocalypse, and last night… it almost happened again. All I can tell you, Luther, is that the only way that I can ever truly make sure that something like that never happens again is by learning how to manage my ability. But, I understand that that isn’t enough for you, so I have an offer to make,” you glance at Vanya, confused by her sudden offer to bargain with Luther, “If something like that ever happens again, you can lock me in the box until I am back under control. You can keep me in there for as long as you, Luther, think is necessary- until you think it’s safe to let me out.” 

“No!” You turn to face Vanya, eyes wide in horror, “No, you can’t make promises like that-”

“Is that enough security for you, Luther? Will that make you feel safe?” Vanya speaks quietly, face pale and voice wavering. Her hand is shaking again as it rests in yours. You realize that she must be terrified of her own proposition.

Luther nods. You look around the table at the rest of the Hargreeves siblings. They look mortified. Five nods slowly, but he looks at Vanya with a softness to his gaze.

“Obviously, we need to think of the world, and preventing the apocalypse needs to be our first priority, but… Vanya, are you sure that you want to agree to this? If you do, then we will go through with it, without hesitation, if you ever pose a threat again.”

“I am,” Vanya nods, “From now on, though, no more pills. Those are my terms.” Nobody seems eager to speak.

“All those who agree?” Allison glances around the table. Furtively, the siblings begin to raise their hands.

“Well then. We’re in agreement. And Vanya- I hope you know that we are going to do whatever we have to in order to make this right. No more decisions made without you, from here on out. You are a part of this family, please don’t ever forget that.” Allison looks at Vanya, pleading for some sort of response from her sister. You hold Vanya’s hand tighter, reminding her that you are still with her, by her side. 

“I know that we have a lot to work on. I have- we all have- so much emotional baggage, that it would take years to really unpack all of it. But hey, I’m willing to work on it if you guys are,” she smiles around the table, eyes cast downward. Klaus puts his feet up on the table, reclining precariously in his chair.

“Let’s hear it for Sir Reginald Hargreeves folks! Father of the fucking century!” He breaks the silence of the room with his chortling voice, almost knocking over his chair. Diego snickers. Triggered by Diego, the rest of the room breaks into laughter- you included. As though a house of cards is falling, with each eruption into laughter, another barrier is brought crashing down between the siblings. Maybe reconciliation really was possible after all.

After the laughter dies down and the kitchen slowly empties, you and Vanya leave the Academy. As you walk down the streets of the city towards Vanya’s apartment, the mid-afternoon sun shines through the bare branches of trees overhead, a warm juxtaposition to the cold, autumn breeze weaving itself between the gaps of your intertwined fingers. 

“Vanya, you were amazing in there. Just absolutely... amazing. The way you stayed calm talking to Luther, it was honestly incredible. I am honestly, ridiculously, proud of you for doing that. I can’t even imagine.”

“It was really nothing special. I knew that it was the only way that Luther would ever listen to me. I think that we made some progress in there. At least they didn’t exclude me from the conversation about my own powers. That is definitely something that they would have done a year ago.”

“Hey, I’m still proud of you. There was nothing ordinary about what you just did,” you smile down at her, and you can almost picture the gleam that must be reflecting in your eyes as you do,  “So, I was thinking. We have never actually been on a proper date.”

“I guess we haven’t. Do you have something in mind?”

“I was thinking, maybe I could take you out to dinner? Tonight? There’s this really nice cafe in Bricktown… I was just thinking-” She cuts you off with a kiss.

“That sounds amazing. Pick me up at 7?” You are at the steps of Vanya’s apartment building now.

“Yeah, I’ll pick you up at 7!” You wave goodbye to her as she walks up the stairs to her apartment. Now- to get ready for that date...

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey my dudes... it's been awhile. First off, I would like to sincerely apologize for my inactivity. I would like to offer a quick explanation, you know, in case any of you are mad at me... First, there was the writer's block. I swear, I could not write a sentence that I felt good about to save my life for the first few weeks of June. Writing anything romantic or fluffy felt like a stab through my feels... it was a time. Then, for the past week I was in Florida competing at a conference (if any of you are interested- yes, Florida is as wild as they say it is. Yes there are alligators. Also, tornadoes- who woulda thought?). Anyway, please accept this extra-long chapter as my heartfelt apology.
> 
> To change the topic, I really hope that you guys like this week's chapter!! I felt pretty bad about my last update not including anything really plot advancing, so here you guys go- plot on plot on plot on plot. As always, I appreciate any sort of feedback that you have to offer. I do my best to respond to all comments. I don't know, something about getting to talk to people who read whatever this thing is that I'm writing is so crazy. Thank you so much for reading, and lots of love to all of you!!! <3<3<3


	11. Chapter 11

The sun is just beginning to set, emblazoning the sky with hues of fiery orange and warm, watered-down pink, when you reach your apartment. The clock on your wall says 5 o’clock. Ok. You have about an hour to get ready, and another hour to walk back to Vanya’s apartment. You can do that. Right? It can’t be all that difficult to get ready to go on a date. Then again… what is one even supposed to wear on a date?

You walk to your closet, your own question reverberating through your head. You pick out a starched, white, short-sleeved, button down, and a thin, black tie. You hastily throw it on, looking in the mirror as you do. You could almost laugh- you look somewhere between a front man to a mid-2000s emo band and a waiter. You quickly untie the tie, unbutton the shirt, and throw them into a pile on your bed. It seems wise to stop to think before performing another impulse-grab from your wardrobe. You know that you have a suit somewhere in your closet… No. That would be far too formal, and you want to avoid overdressing and making Vanya uncomfortable. You could wear a dress, yes, but on second thought, you realize that you’d rather permanently forsake your Netflix subscription than do that. Finally, with a sigh of exasperation, you pull out one of your typical outfits: A button down, a cardigan, black pants, and dress shoes. You look like you could be on your way to tutoring, or even to orchestra rehearsal. It’s better to be comfortable anyway, you think, considering how nervous you are for this date.

It’s funny. You and Vanya have eaten breakfast together every morning for over a month now. Vanya is at your apartment more often than she stays at her own. You know her darkest secrets, her worst fears, and are familiar with every facet of her childhood trauma. Hell, you even stopped her from causing the literal apocalypse last night. In your rational mind, you know that all of this is true, but the very thought of taking Vanya out on a date- it is absolutely terrifying to you.

After lacing your shoes and pulling on your cardigan, you walk into your bathroom. You flip the light switch, wincing as the bright lights over your mirror flicker into use. You turn the tap to your sink. Should you try to wear makeup? Maybe just some eyeliner? You splash water on to your face and pat it try with a towel. Maybe just some eyeliner (emphasis on some- you really don’t need to be crossing into mid-2000s-emo-frontman territory again). You uncap the small black eyeliner pencil on your counter and begin to rub it across your waterline. When you finish, you look at your face in the mirror. You look like a sleep-deprived racoon. You sigh, wiping away as much of the eyeliner as you can with a combination of makeup wipes and q-tips. Your waterline is still tinted black, ever so slightly, and it doesn’t look bad, per se. You decide to leave it as it is. You look down at your phone. 6 o’clock! How the hell did it take you so long to do absolutely nothing? You throw your phone into a bag, sling it over your shoulder, check the mirror one last time, and walk out your door, heart racing, thoroughly unprepared for the night ahead of you.

As you walk down the stairs to your apartment, you take in the city around you. Night has fallen, but the world around you is as lively as ever. You hear the bustle of street traffic, the chattering murmurs of pedestrians on the sidewalk. The night sky is streaked with haze, lit up in patches by the glow of electric signs atop old, brick buildings. Air streaked with cilantro and saffron wafts its way past you, characteristic of the street vendors that you know to be parked along the curb. The city at night is beautiful, and the sight of it is almost enough to stop your thoughts from spiraling down through all of the ways that you are going to ruin your relationship with Vanya on this date. There are plenty that you have come up with, none of them are rational, but then again, when has that ever stopped you from panicking?

On your way to Vanya’s apartment, you see a flower shop. You push open the door and walk into the store, cringing slightly as an electronic chime signals your arrival to the otherwise silent store. You see a small bouquet of daisies, packed intermittently with little green leaves and tiny white flowers. It reminds you of Vanya- it is unassuming, but in its own quiet way, it is more beautiful to you than any of the other flowers in the shop. They aren’t a dozen red roses, but that’s what you love about them. You bring it to the counter, where a woman has been sitting behind the register reading a novel.

“Will this be all for you today?”

“Yes, uh, thanks,” you smile, with eyes downcast, your mind far away from the transaction taking place.

“So, who are these for? Who’s the lucky boy?”

“Uhm, actually, they’re for my girlfriend…” 

“Well, I’m sure that she’ll love them!”

You smile your silent thanks, take the bouquet, and leave the shop, heart rate steadying with each passing step. By the time you reach Vanya’s apartment building, your nerves are banished. You walk up the two flights of stairs to her second-story apartment and knock on her door. You hear footsteps as she rushes to open it. She swings it open, and your mind goes blank. Because you don’t think you have ever seen such a pretty girl, ever. Because you are so ridiculously lucky that she let you into her life. Because, in the end, you know that no matter what happens, you will never do anything to hurt the angel that you see in front of you right now.

You stand there, voiceless, breathless, for a second too long. Vanya laughs.

“Are these for me?”

“Oh,” you laugh, shaking yourself out of your stupor, “Yeah, they are.” She leans in to smell the bouquet, burying her face in the bunch of flowers and greenery. You watch her, rumpling your hair mindlessly as you do. She is adorable.

“I love them! Let me just get them in some water real quick, then we can go,” She stands on her tip-toes to kiss you, quickly, before running back into her apartment. You follow her into her kitchen, watching as she fills a vase with water, gently placing the bouquet inside of it. She is wearing, like you, an outfit typical of her: a blue button down with leather elbow patches, gray slacks, and dress shoes. However, rather than wearing her hair pulled back, it falls down over her shoulders in waves, and you can see traces of eyeliner ringing her eyes. You could almost laugh at how similarly you had thought to get ready for this date. She seems out of breath, and her fingers are fiddling with the hem of her shirt. She is as nervous as you were!

“So, where are we going?” She questions, turning her attention away from the hem of her shirt to you.

“Well, there will be food involved. The rest is confidential. You’ve just got to wait and see…”

“Oh, a surprise! Well, can you at least tell me where we’re headed? Just one hint?”

“Fine- it’s a place in Bricktown, but that’s all you’re going to get out of me!”

Together, you walk down to the curb. Her part of town is quieter than your own, devoid of street vendors, the hustle and bustle of cars and busses, or even quiet pedestrian chatter.

“Maybe I should have hailed a cab before I got here…” You look down, a little embarrassed that you hadn’t thought to do so.

“There’s nothing bad about waiting a little while for a cab. You know, the city is sort of nice at night. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that I get to be out here waiting with you…” She smiles up at you, and in that moment, you wish that the cab would never arrive. Unfortunately, just as you are about to respond, it does.

“Well, I guess we don’t get to wait any longer. And you were starting to make it sound really, really nice.”

“There will be other times… for waiting.” She grins. You open the cab door for her, allowing her to slide into the backseat, before you follow suit. You hand the driver a piece of paper with the address of your destination written on it. 

“Can you take us here?” You ask. He replies with a curt nod before sliding the glass divider closed, giving you privacy. And thus, your date has begun.

The drive to Bricktown isn’t far. In twenty minutes, you’ve arrived, paid your fare, and are standing on the curb outside of a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant. Its patio is criss-crossed with a string of glowing fairy lights, and a neon sign flickering gently in the corner of the window assures you that the eatery is open for business. You lead Vanya through the door, up to the hostess podium.

“Uh, hello, I have a reservation for (Y/N)?” You awkwardly question the hostess.

“Of course, follow me right this way!”

She leads you down a narrow hallway to the restaurant's main dining room. You had called ahead earlier today to make preparations for your date, and you are not disappointed. The hostess seats you in a booth with high wooden benches and a tabletop covered in a white cloth, dotted with votive candles. The candlelight flickers across the stone wall behind the booth, and when Vanya sits down, it illuminates her eyes in a soft, golden glow.

“This is, uhm, really fancy… you did this for me?”

“Of course I did this for you, Vanya… I wanted to make tonight absolutely perfect for you. I want it to be as extraordinary as you are.” You reach out to hold her hand across the table. She looks down, unable to make eye contact with you, but smiling to herself. After a moment, she looks back up at you.

“So, why this place, of all of the restaurants in the city?”

“Well, for one, they make the best gnocchi I have ever tasted- ever. And, well, I used to always come here with my family when I was growing up. This place is full of memories. Good. Bad. All across the spectrum. And, since we are not only on our first ‘real’ date, but also celebrating your impending familial reconciliation… Well, I thought I ought to show you a piece of my past. And, of course,” you laugh, “introduce you to the best goddamn gnocchi you’ll ever eat!”

“Thank you for bringing me here. Uh, maybe after we eat, you could tell me more about those memories of yours?” You nod your agreement.

“Deal. I’m just… Vanya,” you reach over to grab her other hand across the table, “I’m so happy that you’re here…”

“You have no idea…” She smiles at you, before her eyes are abruptly drawn away from you. Vanya’s face turns ash white. Her pupils widen, and her hands tremble, clammy in your grip.

“Vanya, what is it? Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but the only sound that comes out is a suffocating choke, as though all of the air has been sucked from her lungs. You look behind you, heart pounding, desperate to identify the source of Vanya’s evident terror.

A man in an apron is walking up to you, a disconcerting smile plastered on his scruffy face. You don’t need to look further to identify who this man is. You don’t need to ask Vanya. You know that there is only one person on Earth who could evoke this reaction from her. The man walking towards you is Leonard Peabody, or should you say, Harold Jenkins- and he is very much alive.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up my dudes!? Is this... wow! An update less than a week from the last time I updated? WOW! I hope that you guys enjoyed the chapter. I know it's cheesy. To be honest, I really just wanted to write something ridiculously soft and fluffy. You know how it be sometimes. 
> 
> Also, Leonard!! What can I say, I hate the dude. I would 100% fight him in a Denny's parking lot at dawn. I would pay for the opportunity. So, you probably have some questions about why he's working in an Italian restaurant, or what he's been up to, or how he's even alive. All will be explained in due time...
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading. This fic has over 1k hits now, which is insane to me for so many reasons. I know that this is a pretty niche fic, to say the least. If you so desire, leave feedback in the comment section below! I really appreciate you guys' feedback. If y'all wanna discuss your hatred for the human dumpster fire that is Leonard/Harold in the comments, feel free to do so as well! Sending you guys lots of love- and remember, pride month is never really over!!! <3<3<3


	12. Chapter 12

Harold Jenkins? How is he even alive, let alone working at the cafe you’ve frequented your entire life? Your eyes flit back to Vanya’s, and in their depths you can see a murky grey hue swirling, threatening to wash out her warm, brown pupils. Becoming the White Violin seems to be a reasonable reaction to this situation, but it is a reaction that the world cannot afford to see presently. You grab her arm in an attempt to ground the terrified girl across from you. The grey color quickly fades from her eyes at your touch, but it is apparent that Vanya is far from fine. As Jenkins continues to approach, Vanya visibly tenses, her body rigid and unmoving on the seat of the bench. She looks as though she is trying to crawl into herself, a desperate attempt to avoid the man who had broken her beyond repair just months ago (and who she had thrown a kitchen’s worth of knives at in retaliation). Before you can say a word to her, Vanya launches to her feet and makes a beeline for the exit. You stand to follow her, mind already frantically searching for the right words to console Vanya when you catch her. Harold, however, stands in your way.

“Rough night, huh?” He looks at you with the utmost sympathy in his eyes, and a saccharine sweetness to his voice that makes you sick to your stomach. You want to punch him, slap him, to grab a butter knife and finish the job that Vanya had started months ago, in another timeline… But you know that you need to catch up to Vanya. This man doesn’t deserve your attention. You set him with a seething glare before turning around and following Vanya’s path to the exit.

You find Vanya crouched down into a fetal position on the sidewalk outside of the cafe. You sit down next to her, stroking her hair as she leans against your chest, sobbing. 

“I’m so sorry, I had no idea that he would be here…” She only shakes her head side to side as a response, a multitude of words conveyed within her gesture. It says there’s no way that you could have known, nobody could have known, and she doesn’t blame you for this. It forgives, all the while assuring that no forgiveness is needed. You pull her closer, allowing your shirt to be soaked through with tears. It seems that lately, your nights have ended like this more often than they haven’t. It doesn’t matter, though. Being there for Vanya as she breaks, standing by her as she heals- you would do it every day if you had to.

Soon, Vanya sits up, wipes eyeliner-streaked tears from her cheeks, and looks at you.

“I guess there are some things we should talk about…”

“Starting with how the hell Jenkins is alive?” She flinches at his name when you say it, and you resolve not to use it again unless you absolutely need to. She nods.

“More like why he’s been allowed to live.”

You help Vanya to her feet, and the two of you walk around downtown Bricktown. The night is peaceful, and the streets on which you walk are illuminated softly by the glow of cafe lights and street lamps. Still, an uneasiness hangs in the air around you, brought about by the lingering presence of Harold Jenkins, and perpetuated still by the information which Vanya gives you.

“After the timeline was reset by Five, everything that happened in those eight days before the apocalypse was ‘reset’. For a lot of reasons… well, this was a good thing. Obviously, the apocalypse itself was averted. Allison,” she looks downwards, her voice barely louder than a whisper, “Allison can speak again. But, the reset also meant that other things that should have happened, just didn’t. Ever since the reset, Klaus hasn’t been the same. He won’t tell us what happened, but I know that something was reset for him, something that he cares about. As for Leonard- I mean Harold- I mean… him… well, I didn’t kill him, that action was reset. My family decided that as long as he doesn’t try to get close to me, he can live. After all, as long as he never finds my dad’s notebook, he’ll never find out about me, and that means that theoretically, I’m safe from him.”

“You don’t actually feel safe though…” The reasoning was there, yes, but the way Vanya tensed up when she described it, and the detachment between her words and her demeanor proves to you that something about it isn’t sound.

“Well… no. They made that decision without me. Actually, I was there, but you know how Luther can be…”

You drape your arm across her shoulders, pulling her close to you.

“Well, this is a two-way conversation. What do you want to do about him? What would make you feel safe?”

“I just… I really wish I didn’t have to worry about seeing him everywhere I go. It’s like… he’s still looming over me. He’s always there, in my mind, even though I know that he doesn’t even know who I am, and I… I hate it.”

“Vanya, I say this in all seriousness, do you want to kill him? Because I would completely support that, and I could help you hide the body-”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” she offers a half laugh, “But I would rather avoid killing him. I’ve done that before, and it didn’t make anything any better. I can still see it. All of those knives… I can’t do that again when I can still see it so clearly in my mind from the last time.”

“I understand. So, we leave him alone unless he tries to get close to you again?”

“I think so. Maybe we can just… not come to Bricktown again?” 

“Yeah. I would say that that’s a given. No more Bricktown,” You laugh, “Well, I know tonight didn’t exactly go as planned, but maybe we can salvage it, if you’re up for that?” Vanya smiles, that smile that makes your breath catch in your throat, and looks up at you, no trace of the tears in her eyes that had been there just minutes ago.

“What are you thinking?”

“Well, it is November, and I saw some pumpkins over in that shop we just passed…”

“Yes! Let’s carve some discount pumpkins!” Vanya beats you to the end of your sentence, which you can’t help but laugh at. You walk back to the shop where you had seen the pumpkins and pick out two. As you are standing in line to buy them, you look at Vanya, and how giant the pumpkin looks compared to her tiny frame. When you reach the front of the line, she heaves the pumpkin up onto the counter. You place yours next to it, and after you pay, you pick up both pumpkins before walking out of the store. It doesn’t take long to hail a taxi, fortunately, and you are able to plop both gourds on the seat just as your arms are beginning to give out from their weight. You give the cab driver the address of your apartment, and soon, you are picking up the pumpkins again to carry them up your apartment stairs.

For the rest of the night, you carve pumpkins with Vanya. You don’t have any pumpkin carving tools, but you really don’t care. All that you need is a knife and the girl sitting across from you to have a good time. Your hands are covered in pumpkin strings, and your coffee table ends up covered in seeds, but when Vanya kisses you, the mess fades away into static. Neither of you thinks about Harold Jenkins, or Luther, or the apocalypse. The only thing on your mind is Vanya, and really, that’s all you want to think about anyway.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again my dudes!! I say hello again, because, well, it's been awhile. I sincerely apologize for the inactivity. I don't really have a good excuse either. All I can say is, you know how summer can be. Things can get hectic, and suddenly everything that you want to spend time on takes a back seat to everything else. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed this little chapter! I kept it extra fluffy this time. When I wrote it I was feeling like an extra-disastrous, affection-starved gay... so yeah. It probably shows. As usual, I appreciate all forms of feedback, and I absolutely love reading your comments. Thank you all for reading!! <3<3<3


	13. Chapter 13

As days blend into weeks following your ill-fated date night, life with Vanya returns to normal. That is to say, as normal as your life with Vanya could be, given the circumstances of your relationship. You continue to help Vanya learn to control her powers. She’s managed to coax a melody from a row of glasses on multiple occasions without breaking a single one, an occurrence that never fails to make Vanya (and yourself) beam with pride. Between your lessons, rehearsals, and jobs, sleep has become a rare and much appreciated luxury. Orchestra rehearsals have become relentless in their frequency, a result of your upcoming concert- the very same concert which has brought you to the front gate of the Umbrella Academy, alone, on this Monday morning.

Standing before the umbrella-emblazoned gate, you can’t help but remember the last time you had tried to complete the mission you had sought out to complete this morning. Today, you are going to convince the Hargreeves siblings to come to Vanya’s concert, and you will not take no for an answer. The last time you tried to do this, it set off a chain of events that brought the world to the brink of the apocalypse. Hopefully, that won’t happen today.

Vanya does not know that you are at her childhood home. When you learned that she had a violin lesson this morning, the opportunity to surprise Vanya had presented itself, and it was simply too tempting to refuse. For Vanya’s siblings to come to her concert, unprompted by her, would be a dream come true. So, here you now stand, palms sweating, decidedly less confident than you had been this morning, but equally determined to complete your mission. You dry your palms on your jeans, rumple your hair, push open the heavy gate, and knock on the building’s imposing front door. Much to your surprise, Allison answers.

“Oh! Good morning (y/n)! What brings you here? Wait, before you answer, why don’t you come inside? Is Vanya with you?” You follow Allison inside, in awe of how put together she looks at 8 o’clock in the morning. She is wearing a full-face of makeup, not to mention a blouse and pants which appear polished, yet effortless, a look that you know from (failed) experience to be almost impossible to coordinate at any hour of the day, let alone the early morning. 

“No, I’m alone today. But, actually, I am here about Vanya-”

“Is she ok? Did something happen to her?” She cuts you off, her voice doubling in speed.

“She’s fine,” you reassure Allison, who breathes a sigh of relief, “Actually, I wanted to invite you, and the rest of your siblings, to Vanya’s concert this Saturday. I know that it would mean the world to her if you came. It’s at the Icarus Theater at 7 o’clock. I have the tickets right here.” You pull a bundle of tickets out of your pocket. Each orchestra member is allowed two free tickets, so you had picked up not just Vanya’s, but your own, and being one ticket short, you had pooled money from your tutoring job to buy the last ticket you needed to seat all of the Hargreeves siblings. 

“Of course I’ll come to the concert! As for my siblings, I’m sure that they would love to as well,” she laughs, “Even if I have to rumor them, I promise you that every one of those seats will be filled.”

“Thank you, Allison. Vanya is going to be so excited when she sees all of you in the audience. Just promise me one thing?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t show up in bowling shoes,” you laugh.

“Well, that’s a given,” she responds with a smile, “Also, (y/n), I really want to thank you. And, I want to apologize…”

“No, no, Allison! You have nothing to apologize for-”

“Except, I do have something I need to apologize for. As soon as you came into Vanya’s life, I assumed the worst of you. I thought that you were just like… other people who had hurt Vanya before. I never gave you the benefit of the doubt, or even a chance to prove yourself. I guess I did that because as soon as you recognize someone, or something, is dangerous, it’s usually too late to stop bad things from happening. I didn’t want to lose Vanya like I almost lost her before, or like how I lost…” she hesitates for a moment, as though deciding whether or not to open up to you. Her eyes set in resolution, she continues, “Like how I lost my daughter, Claire. I did some things that I regret, things that I never should have done, and by the time I realized that I was toxic, it was too late. I lost her. With Leonard, I knew from the offset that there was something off about him, but there was no way for me to prove that to Vanya until she was already too far gone. He was the only one in her life that had shown her any form of love, and there was nothing I could say to undo the hold he had on her. I guess… I didn’t want that to happen again. I couldn’t let it. But, you aren’t Leonard. I think that you actually care about my sister. No, I know that you do. The way that you defend her… you know, I used to think that I was the only one in this house that did. Ever since Vanya came out of her coma, I felt like I was single handedly protecting her. I got into so many fights with Luther over those damn pills. So, I guess this is where my thank-you comes in. Thank you, (y/n), for being willing to defend Vanya”

“Allison, there’s really no need to thank me, or to apologize. I would have been suspicious of me too. And Leonard… it makes me sick just thinking about what he did. You had to watch it unfold, and you had no way of stopping it- I don’t blame you for being defensive. And, I just want Vanya to be happy. I love her,” you smile sheepishly at Allison, “And as much as I want to defend her from anything that would do her harm, I’m pretty sure that she’s got that covered herself”

“That’s Vanya. She’s pretty incredible.”

“We can agree on that,” you respond, focusing on the floor in front of you as you feel your cheeks flush pink. Allison hugs you, an action that is just as much out of gratitude as it is out of relief.

“Well, I’ll see you at the concert on Saturday,” you wave goodbye to Allison as you exit through the front door.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The rest of the week passes as quickly as the weeks prior. Your days have become a seamless blend of cello, whining glasses, violin, tutoring, ramen, and caffeine, in no particular order. When Friday night arrives, the first night in weeks that you are free of obligations, you and Vanya fall asleep on your couch at seven. When you wake the next day, full light is pouring through your living room blinds.

“Ugh, what time is it?” You ask groggily. Vanya grabs her phone from your coffee table.

“It’s two…”

“As in the afternoon? Two in the afternoon?” Your voice rings with panic. You need to be at the concert hall by five for pre-concert rehearsal and prep, and you are nowhere near ready for the concert yet. Vanya is wide awake now, and she darts up, clearly as concerned as you are.

“I need to go back to my apartment to get ready. Do you want to meet up for coffee before we go to the theater, if we have time?”

“If we have time, that would be perfect,” she stops for a moment, and you kiss her, allowing the world to stop moving around you for just a moment. You hear the two water glasses on your coffee table whistle and tremble before you break away, smiling. “Now let’s just make sure that we have time for that later.”

Vanya nods her agreement and leaves your apartment, violin in hand. Now, to get ready for the concert. You pull out your concert suit: a black suit jacket, tapered black pants, a white collared shirt, and a thin, black tie. It is covered in lint and wrinkles from being shoved in the back of your closet for months, so you pull out an iron and a lint roller and get to work. You’ve never been especially skilled at ironing, but you are somewhat of a master lint roller, so by the time you’re through with the suit it looks decent. You aren’t first cello, so decent will be more than passable for tonight. You throw on the suit, brush out your hair, and look at yourself in the mirror. Now comes the hard part. You fold up your collar, grab your tie, and attempt to contort the fabric into something that resembles a knot. Today, you are successful- for the first time ever on the first try, actually. You pull on your black dress shoes. There. You look like any other member of the orchestra, which is exactly the look you had been aiming to pull off.

You slip your phone and your keys into your pocket. Vanya probably isn’t ready yet, so you have some time to practice some of your pieces for the concert before you meet her for coffee. You unclasp your cello case, grab your bow, and prepare to play- when your phone buzzes. Vanya is ready to meet at the cafe. Fortunately, you don’t need any more practice for the concert, you know the music by heart, and you would much rather spend the last hour before the concert with Vanya anyway. You respond to her text, grab your cello case, and begin your walk down to the cafe.

The december wind chills you through your suit, and by the time you reach the cafe, your cheeks are flushed scarlet from the cold. A grin crosses your face when you see that Vanya already has a table next to the cafe’s fireplace. She has two coffees sitting in front of her, but despite your love for caffeine, your smile is for Vanya. She stands to wave you over to the table, and you need to stop to catch your breath. Vanya in a suit may just be the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, and your utterly useless lesbian brain is struggling to process it.  Before you can embarrass yourself, your legs (which are now, miraculously, a separate entity to the rest of your body) carry you to the table.

“Vanya, you look... incredible”

“I could say the same thing about you,” she responds, her cheeks now as scarlet as yours. You take a sip of the coffee in front of you, savoring the bitter caffeination running across your tongue. You look back up at Vanya, who you realized never stopped looking at you.

“So, are you ready for this concert?”

“I think so. It’s just… you know.” You do know. The last three times Vanya had visited the Icarus Theater had been problematic, to say the least. 

“Vanya, you know the music, you know the counts, and you know your powers better now than you ever have before,” you slide your hand across the table to hold hers, “You are going to be amazing tonight. Don’t be nervous”

“I’ll try...” she looks down and takes another sip of her coffee.

“If you feel yourself losing control, or even just feeling nervous, just look at me, ok? I’m going to be there on that stage with you.” You want to tell her that she can look at the audience too, that she will see the faces of her siblings as they listen to her play professionally for the first time, but you can’t make any guarantees. You hope that Allison managed to convince the rest of her siblings to come to the concert more than anything, but as long as Vanya doesn’t know that you tried, she can’t be disappointed. It’s better to stay silent.

When you and Vanya finish your coffee, you grab your instruments and walk back out into the cold. It’s not yet 5 o’clock, but darkness has already begun to set on the city, leaving the sky streaked with bleak purples and grays as the first stars begin to peak through wispy clouds. The floor is spotted with ice, and using the slipperiness of the ground as an excuse, you hold Vanya’s hand as you walk along the sidewalk. 

By the time you reach the Icarus Theater, the world around you is dark but for the lights on the theater marquee. You walk through the foyer and into the auditorium, where you and Vanya take your respective seats. A quick rehearsal ensues, much like the countless rehearsals you have suffered through in the past weeks. At its conclusion, the curtains close. The audience is being let in. You look at Vanya sitting in the violin section, looking wistfully at the curtain, and you know that the thoughts running through your head are crossing hers as well. Though she has no reason to expect it, she is hoping against hope that somehow, her siblings will be arriving with the rest of the crowd.

Exactly on schedule, at 7 o’clock, the curtain rises. The conductor taps his baton against the music stand, and the orchestra begins to play. This takes less than ten seconds to occur, but even before the orchestra lets out its first haunting note, Vanya turns to look at you, beaming from ear to ear. You know that it is because she saw them. She had seen her family, as had you. They are sitting in the second row of the middle section of seats (which you imagine the Hargreeves siblings had had to fight several orchestra enthusiasts for). They stick out against the rest of the orchestra-goers. Glances were thrown from all around the theater at the group of ex-superheroes, whom everyone knew of, who came to support their unknown sister, whose talents were just as special.

The orchestra plays as it always does, completely unaware of the unprecedented importance of this performance. You lock eyes with Vanya as you pull your bow across the strings of your cello. Her eyes are bright, and she plays her violin without restraint, but her pupils are brown, without even a tinge of white. Her music is breathtaking, and you can hear as it blends and harmonizes with the violins around her. You allow yourself to fall into song as Vanya has, savoring every moment of your cello weaving through Vanya’s violin. When the concert reaches its last notes, you close your eyes. You’ve never played like that before, and you doubt that you ever will again.

The conductor takes his bow, the audience claps, and the curtains close once again. As the musicians begin to pack their instruments and leave, Vanya runs over to where you sit and envelops you in a hug. She pulls away for a moment, wraps her arms around your neck, and kisses you. She pushes you back into your chair, scattering sheet music across the floor as she does, and wraps her legs around your waist, kissing you hungrily as she holds your face in the palms of her hands. When she finally pulls away, you can see tears forming in the corners of her eyes, a smile plastered across her pale, flushed face.

“It was you, wasn’t it? You told them about the concert, and gave them the tickets. I don’t even know how you got five tickets… I don’t even care” she looks up at you with shining eyes, “Thank you. Thank you so, so much…” She leans in again and kisses you just as hungrily as before. You never want her to stop. That is, until her siblings walk in. She pulls away, and you both scramble to your feet. Klaus looks at the two of you and claps his hands.

“Oh! I see that we’re interrupting. Well, we can just come back later…” he lilts, looking at you knowingly. Vanya quickly responds.

“No, no! You’re not interrupting anything,” her words come out on top of each other, and you have to bite your lip to hold back a laugh. “Guys… I’m so happy that you came. This means the world to me. Seeing all of you here- well, I never thought that all of you would come to one of my concerts, and seeing you in the audience was amazing. Thank you, all of you.” Allison steps forward and hands her a bouquet of roses.

“Vanya, that was incredible. I am so sorry that I never came to see you before…” Allison clasps Vanya in a tight hug. Five, Diego, Klaus- even Luther- nod their agreement.

“Well, I’ll let you guys have this moment. Meet you guys outside of the theater in 20?” you glance at Vanya, who looks happily squished in Allison’s grip. Allison gives you a grateful smile and nods.

You look at the siblings one last time as you walk down the stage stairs and into one of the performer hallways. You know that there’s water, and quite possibly donuts, down here somewhere for the performers. As you turn a corner, you see a face that makes your blood run cold. It’s Leonard Peabody, standing in the empty hallway, waiting. You turn to run in the direction from which you came, but before you do, he grabs your wrist.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.” That voice- dripping with false sympathy and... anxiety? You feel a chill run up your spine. He drops his hand from your wrist, instead choosing to utilize a disarming smile to prevent your escape.

“Hello. My name is Leonard. I think that you already know that, but I’m not quite sure exactly how you do. Your name is (y/n), and you’re in love with Vanya Hargreeves. I am right, aren’t I?” He speaks almost cheerfully, which does nothing to assuage your fear. If anything, it heightens it.

“How the hell do you know that? Have you been watching me?”

“Well, yes actually. I know, I know, that seems really creepy. I promise though, I had the best intentions. I really just want to talk to you. Will you talk to me?”

“That depends on what you have to say.”

“Just give me a minute, and I promise that it will be worth your while,” he pauses, waiting for your nod of approval. When you give it, he continues.

“About a month ago, I was your waiter. You probably don’t remember me, or maybe you do, I couldn’t know. Your date, Vanya, ran away when I approached your table. Well, at first I thought it must just be a misunderstanding, but her face seemed familiar, so that night I decided to look her up. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the person I had seen was Vanya Hargreeves! You see, I was a huge fan of the Umbrella Academy as a child, but I never knew that there was a seventh member of the team, which struck me as odd,” he chuckles to himself, “Because, you see, I was sort of a super-fan. When I found out that she had written a tell-all novel, well! I went out and bought it the next day. I’m sure you know about the book…” he waits for some action of approval, but when you refuse to give it, he continues talking as though nothing is remotely amiss, “Well, when I read it, I thought, that’s weird! You see, Reginald Hargreeves would never allow an ordinary student to live with the Umbrella Academy. So, I came to the conclusion that Vanya must not be ordinary at all!” His realization, said with a grin, makes your stomach drop inside of you. You are careful not to show any emotion on your face- you can’t confirm or deny his theory. One thing is clear: Leonard knows far too much, and he certainly isn’t keeping his distance from Vanya.

“Well, I gave you a minute, so I really need to be going now-” He grabs your wrist again.

“You love her! Don’t you want to help her find out if she has some kind of repressed power that’s been kept hidden from her? Don’t you think that she should know if her family has been lying to her? I assume the whole Academy is in on the secret. I can help you help her!”

“That’s it- I’m leaving now. You sound insane, you know that right?” You begin to walk away, brushing away his hand on your wrist. As you leave, he shouts at your back.

“You know how horribly her siblings treated her! You can help her prove to them that she’s anything but ordinary! Think about it.”

You don’t look back. As you walk to the front of the theater, you take a moment to process the conversation you just had. The more you think about it, the more nauseated you become. He wants you to play the role he had played when Vanya first caused the apocalypse. He means for you to manipulate her into destroying her siblings with her “newfound” powers. You know that his supposed concern for Vanya is fabricated, a ploy to manipulate you into participating in his plot. He doesn’t have all the information he had in the other timeline (as far as you know, Hargreeves’ journal is still secure in his office), yet he is still trying to find a way to use Vanya to destroy the Umbrella Academy.

When you walk through the foyer out into the cold night air, you see Vanya standing close to her siblings, holding the bouquet of roses which had been given to her by Allison. You take a deep breath and approach them.

“I hate to ruin this moment, I really do, but there’s something that you should know. Leonard Peabody- Harold Jenkins- is back. And he is definitely not trying to keep his distance.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again my dudes! Thank you so much for reading the latest installment of... whatever this is. I appreciate all of you so, so much, and again, I apologize for the wait. I want to warn you that there will probably be a little bit of a wait before the next chapter as well. Before the summer is over, I need to write a massive research paper (and other assorted essays), so I will be putting all of my focus into that for the next couple of weeks. As my apology (both present and future), I really hope that you enjoyed this extra-long chapter. Soooo much plot! 
> 
> Another quick thank you- I am almost at 100 kudos, which is pretty wild to me. Thank you all for your continued support and feedback. I appreciate all of your comments so much. Lots of love to all of you!!
> 
> Quick addition!! I basically just got a Tumblr (I know- I am so late to this train, and I really wish I had been on this site for so much longer, but I digress). My username is @thedaythatwas. I'll be posting updates on my blog as they come out. More importantly, if you want to talk to me or even make one shot requests, check me out there! I would love to interact with you guys more, if that's something you're at all interested in. Like I said, I am extremely new to the platform, so I'm trying my best to learn how it works. Please be patient with me <3


	14. Chapter 14

Allison’s face rapidly tenses, her eyes steeling, staring into yours.

“Is he here?” You nod your response, your phrases short and jumbled. You are utterly out of breath.

“Yes. And he tried to talk to me. He tried to convince me to convince Vanya to unleash her powers. He seemed to want to turn her against you. Basically, exactly what he tried last time”

“Wait… her powers? How the hell would he know about her powers? Unless…” Allison glares pointedly at Klaus, who shrugs defensively.

“Cross my heart and hope to die, I haven’t touched that box, or that journal. If Creepy McCreepface knows about Vanya, he didn’t find out from me.”

“It’s true,” you interject, defending Klaus from Allison’s withering glare, “As far as I can tell, he deduced that Vanya must have powers. He said that Reginald would never have let her live with the Umbrella Academy without some sort of superpower. By the way, have I mentioned recently how much I hate your deceased father?” As you speak, you see that Diego is standing distanced from the group, two throwing knives in his black-gloved fists.

“Enough explanations, let’s go get this bastard. Where did you say he was?”

“I saw him in the performers’ hallway. It’s down through the door on the right side of the stage.”

“Wait!” Vanya pushes away from her siblings and stands to face them.

“So… Leonard- er, I mean, Harold, knows about me. And he’s trying to do exactly what he did… last time around,” her face is ghostly pale, and she looks nauseated as she addresses her siblings, “But still, I don’t think that we can kill him right here, right now. We don’t know exactly how much of a problem he is.”

“He won’t be much of a problem with two knives in his chest, I can tell you that much.” Diego starts to walk towards the building. You grab his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. Vanya continues, her voice growing louder in newfound confidence.

“We don’t know exactly how much he knows about me. We also don’t know if he’s told anyone about my powers, or has any plans set in motion that could come back to haunt us later. He could have killed countless people in the six months that we’ve left him alone. I guess what I’m saying is, we can’t leave him alone any longer, but we also need to minimize the damage that he’s caused since we first decided to.” You look at Vanya. Her eyes are blazing with anger, but she looks completely in control of her emotions. You are decidedly less so, and when you speak, your words drip with fear.

“Vanya… what exactly are you suggesting?”

“Leonard will do anything to get close to me. We know that. I’m saying that we give him what he wants, at least until we know enough to take him out responsibly, without any loose ends.” Number Five nods somberly, but his eyes are deep in thought.

“So you want to spy on Leonard… that could work. Still, the risks are fairly obvious. He could do something to make you lose control of your powers involuntarily, and we can’t rule out the chance, however unlikely, of you losing them again voluntarily. Again, we definitely can’t kill him without knowing what sort of damage he’s done already…”

“It would be different this time around. I won’t lose control of my powers because I know the game that he’s playing. I won’t play into his scheme. Also, chances are he’ll use the same tactics as he did last time to get to me, seeing as he doesn’t know that he’s tried them on me before. He shouldn’t know anything about the other timeline, right Five?”

Five nods in response. Allison nods slowly, but the fear in her eyes is as tangible as it is in your own.

“Vanya, are you sure that you want to do this?”

“I am. I need to do this. Will you let me?” She looks each of her siblings in the eye before her gaze comes to rest on you. You nod. Her siblings follow suit.

Just like that, the discussion is over. No more logistics are discussed, no more questions asked. A switch has been flipped, and the Hargreeves are back to celebrating Vanya’s performance as though nothing is amiss. It dawns on you that this is probably another product of their dysfunctional childhood. To be both a functional human and a crime-fighting superhero, you guess, you need to know how to separate your missions from your life (From the looks of some of the siblings, you can tell that some of them have mastered this skill more adeptly than others).

“I wish Griddy’s was still open, then we could go eat donuts there just like in the good old days,” Five sighs wistfully, prompting a laugh from Klaus.

“What good old days? If I remember correctly, we had to sneak out of the house at 2 o’clock in the morning just to get those donuts. Then again, maybe I don’t remember correctly. My mind was quite… addled, by the time we started doing that.”

In your mind, puzzle pieces finally click together. 

“Did you guys have something to do with the fire that burned down Griddy’s?” you laugh, dumbstruck that you hadn’t thought of this connection sooner. Allison rolls her eyes, chuckling.

“It’s actually sort of a long story. But hey, we can tell it over a round of bowling, my treat!”

The entirety of the Hargreeves family, plus you, piles into an Uber (Fortunately, its an Uber XL, again, Allison’s treat). Vanya is cuddled up close to you in the middle row, her head resting in the crook of your neck. Klaus lays sprawled across the laps of Luther and Diego in the back row, much to their discomfort. When you arrive at the bowling alley, the driver seems thoroughly annoyed. As you slip out of the car, the tips of your ears burning red, you slip the driver an extra tip before rushing to catch up with Vanya’s family.

You spend the rest of your night bowling, albeit poorly. Klaus, unashamed, bowls with bumpers programmed for your lane. Luther, unwilling to take such measures, rolls a series of gutter balls. As you bowl, the Hargreeves siblings tell you the story of how Griddy’s diner burned down.

“Wait… Let me get this straight. So, Five, you fought an entire unit of trained soldiers, unarmed, in a donut shop? And you killed all of them?”

He nods in confirmation.

“So afterwards, once the place was declared a crime scene, a pair of time traveling assassins scoped it out? And one of them burned the place to the ground… out of spite?”

“Well, that’s what we suspect, but yes.”

“But then, when you undid the apocalypse, Griddy’s came out fine? And it burned down again in another, completely unrelated, grease fire?” You double over, tears pooling at the corners of your eyes from laughter.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, that’s ridiculous… I mean you see the irony there, right? Right?” None of Vanya’s siblings, save Klaus, who laughs at practically everything, are laughing, but they give you accommodating smiles. Vanya sits down next to you on the molded, plastic row of chairs near your lane, leaning on your shoulder. She tilts her neck up towards you and smiles, cupping her hand to whisper in your ear.

“You know, you’re adorable when you laugh.” The feeling of her breath, warm against the skin of your neck, quiets your laughter and makes your entire body feel flushed. She rests her head against your side again, melting into you. You don’t want to move a single muscle for fear of disturbing her. As you lean your own weight against Vanya, you feel her chest as it rises and falls in breath. This is heaven. The bowling alley fades away. There are no neon lights, the sound of crashing pins is inaudible, and even the gaudiness of the strike screen fails to catch your attention. None of it is more important, nor as entirely all-consuming, as the bliss derived from the girl curled up into you.

When your time on the bowling lane expires, after you return your bowling shoes and say your weary goodbyes to Vanya’s siblings, you find yourself in the back seat of a cab with Vanya, homebound. You sit, cheek pressed against the window of the cab, violin and cello cases haphazardly stacked to fit beneath your legs. Vanya’s head is practically in your lap. You think that she might be asleep, judging from the steady rhythm of her breath, but you don’t attempt to wake her. When you finally pull up at the curb of your apartment building, you pay the driver before gently shaking her awake. Her eyes snap open, and you walk together up to your apartment. As you walk through the threshold, you immediately find yourself collapsing on the couch. Vanya falls down on top of you, allowing your instruments to tumble to the carpet.

“Hey, Vanya?”

“Yeah?”

“I know that you probably don’t want to talk about this, but-”

“You’re worried about me getting close to Leonard?”

“Well… yes.”

Vanya raises herself up from your lap, turning to face you as she does.

“I know. To be completely honest with you, I’m terrified. Leonard… Harold… he brought out the worst in me, and I hate him for that. Even worse, I can’t entirely blame him for what came after his death, because what he did… What he did was manipulate me into revealing all of these emotions that I already had inside of me. I already had anger, so much anger, and it only took a few twisted words and acts of affection to coax it out of me. He could do it again, I know that… Still, I need to do this. It’s my redemption.”

“Vanya, you don’t need redemption. Yes, you had that anger inside of you before Leonard. But what he did- stealing your medication without your knowledge, forcing you to take on the full weight of your powers before you were ready to handle them, not to mention his blatant manipulation of your childhood trauma- those were all so deeply, inherently wrong of him to do,” you place your hand on Vanya’s thigh, massaging your thumb in circles on the leg of her pantsuit, “Of course I’m worried about you. You’re willingly choosing to relive some of the most traumatic memories of your life. Still, if you feel like you need to do this, then I support it, and I’ll stand by your side through all of it. But please, Vanya, if you’re going to do this, do it for yourself,” you smile weakly at her, your eyes drooping from fatigue, held open by the mere fact that this conversation is more important than sleep.

“I… I think that I am doing it for me…” Her eyes are fixed on yours, and she offers you a small smile in return. Her voice is quiet, but it is tinged with an undeniable certainty that fills your chest with pride. You lean towards her and kiss her, slowly, softly, your lips staying on hers for a small slice of eternity. Your sleep-addled brain is only capable of processing one emotion at a time, and at this moment, all you can feel is pure, unadulterated love. You lay down, resting your head against the plush arm of your couch, and Vanya follows your lead, resting her head against your chest, her entire form curled up against yours. You hear her mumble a phrase under her breath.

“I love you…”

“I love you more…”

And with that, you drift off into sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is up my dudes?!? I'm back! Let me just tell you, it feels SO GOOD to write this again! My academic papers are complete, my skin is clear, my cacti are watered, and my depression is gone. Just kidding- my mental health is still whack, but that is besides the point. I really hope that you enjoyed this chapter! I absolutely loved writing it. On another note, this fic broke 100 kudos, which is absolutely insane to me! Thank you guys so much for all of your love and support for this fic <3
> 
> As usual, all of your feedback is very much appreciated. Thank you guys for reading, and I'll see you all soon with the next update!


	15. Chapter 15

“I need to do this. It’s my redemption.”

Her words have been reverberating through your head all week. Vanya had tried to reassure you that her decision to get close to Leonard was for herself, but to you, it seems blatantly obvious that this is far from the truth.

“My redemption…”

She doesn’t need to be redeemed. She doesn’t need to be redeemed, and yet, you know nothing that you say can convince her otherwise. She has something to prove.

At least, so you think as you stare out the window of your Bricktown-bound taxi. The trees lining the sidewalks of streets filled with shops and restaurants blur together, a result of eyes glazed over in concentration. The sky is spotted with stars- small flickers of light in the colored haze of your addled world. You are startled when the taxi comes to an abrupt halt along the curb beside a certain familiar restaurant. You pay the driver, exit the car, and allow the world to fade back around you. You are here to see Leonard Peabody- you need all your wits about you.

During the week since your concert, you and Vanya had discussed at length the best way to make contact with Leonard. In the end, you agreed that as he had reached out to you, the most believable course of action you could take would be to make first contact with him. A clandestine meeting at his restaurant, you had thought, has just enough drama to make your olive branch seem realistic. The thought of it- of taking the first step in throwing Vanya into Leonard’s schemes, or even simply talking to the man- makes your mouth taste like bile. You take a deep breath and swallow your fear. For Vanya. You are doing this for Vanya.

The Italian restaurant looks the same as it did the night of your date, really, the same as it has for all of your life. You walk beneath strands of fairy lights strung across the patio and push open the door. The door chimes its welcome with the bright ring of a bell, a sound which seems more unsettling than cheery to your apprehensive ears. You ask the hostess for a table for one, and are led to a small booth in the corner of the restaurant. The room is practically empty, which bodes well for you. You’ve done your research, and tonight is Leonard’s shift. Less customers equals fewer waitstaff on the floor, increasing your chances of a one-on-one interaction with Leonard. Now, all you have to do is wait.

Your breath catches in your throat when you see Leonard emerge from the kitchen. Of course, you want to see him, but you can’t fully suppress your emotions when your eyes meet his. You need to get that under control if you want this to be convincing. You take a deep breath. Now, you are an actress, and you need to get into your character.

Leonard arrives at your table and looks over his shoulder, confirming that the two of you are completely alone.

“Well, have you had a change of heart?”

It’s best not to look or sound too eager. Begrudging agreement is what he will be expecting.

“I still don’t really know who you are, and I still don’t approve of you spying on me and my girlfriend,” your voice elevates in volume, softening as you prepare to reel Jenkins in, “But you have a point. Vanya… it makes sense that she would have powers. And it makes sense that her siblings would want to hide them from her. You don’t even know half of what they’ve done to her- they will really do anything to keep her down. I can’t stand to think that a part of Vanya has been hidden from her because of their petty rivalries, or even because of Sir Reginald… She deserves more, so much more.”

Leonard smiles and nods, sliding into the seat across from you at the booth.

“I’m so glad that you see things my way. I know that we can help Vanya reach her full potential, together, as a team.”

“Hold up for just a minute though-” you say through, hopefully subtle, clenched teeth, “I honestly haven’t seen any proof at all that Vanya has powers. As far as I know, and as far as she knows, she’s completely ordinary.”

“Well, obviously if the Umbrella Academy wanted to keep them a secret from the world, or from Vanya herself, they have means to do it. Does she take any medications or products prescribed to her by them? Oh! And of course, we can’t rule out the possibility that the Rumor can suppress an ability either. Does Vanya have frequent contact with Allison Hargreeves?”

It’s frightening just how much correct information Leonard has been able to guess about Vanya. Unless… is it possible that he isn’t guessing? He shouldn’t be able to remember the timeline that Five erased, but could he subconsciously be clinging to his memories? On the night of the apocalypse you helped to prevent, Five had mentioned that Vanya subconsciously navigated to the Icarus Theater to finish what she had started- playing her apocalypse suite. Manipulating Vanya was the pinnacle of Leonard’s ambitions. It was his endgame- his purpose in the timeline. Maybe he remembers more than he should. You’ll need to ask Five about the possibility the next time you see him.

“She has a bottle of pills for her anxiety, prescribed to her by her father. Vanya really does have anxiety though. She needs those pills.” Technically, you aren’t lying. Vanya certainly has anxiety. However, a large portion of it currently stems from the actions of the man sitting across from you, which you aren’t exactly planning on mentioning. You also conveniently exclude the fact that Vanya hasn’t taken those pills in months.

“I’ll bet you anything that those pills do more than Vanya knows. Really, there’s only one way to test that out. Do you think that you could… I don’t know… Destroy the pills? Throw them away? Better yet, dissolve them and rinse the evidence down the drain?”

You pause for a moment, looking down at the table as though you are deep in thought, agonizing over your response. In reality, this conversation is going exactly according to your plan.

“If those pills really are what you say they could be… I guess I have to, don’t I? There’s a problem, though. Vanya and I are practically always together. If I wanted to steal her pills from her apartment, I would need somebody to keep her occupied while I did,” you look pointedly at Leonard, “Somebody like you. We’re a team, right?”

He smiles at you and nods. He’s taken the bait: hook, line, and sinker.

Of course, there are no pills. You yourself had played a role in destroying them, months ago. While you “steal” the pills, Leonard will make contact with Vanya. More accurately, she will make contact with him. For Vanya. This is all for Vanya.

You agree upon a time, you agree upon a place, and Leonard slinks back into the restaurant kitchen. You don’t order anything. The smell of sawdust lingering in the air where Leonard sat kills your appetite.

This is for Vanya. All of this is for Vanya. This is for Vanya. All for Vanya.

As you exit into the cold, night air and hail a taxi, you repeat your mantra. It feels like clarity in the muddled haze of your actions. Nothing about what you are doing feels right. It all feels so completely, utterly wrong that you can’t stand to think about it. As long as you can tell yourself that what you are doing is for Vanya, you can forget about that. You can forget that you’re helping an abuser crawl back into the life of one of his victims, and that his victim is choosing to let him in to redeem herself in the eyes of those she has already redeemed herself in. If she needs this to heal, then goddamnit, this is for her. Quiet those dissenting voices.

You sit in the cab, face pressed against the glass. The voices in your head cannot be quieted, regardless of your mantra, regardless of your imploring for silence. A hurricane of thoughts spirals through your brain as you stumble out of the taxi. The storm only grows as you walk up the stairs to your apartment and unlatch the door.

Then you see Vanya, and the sky of your mind is suddenly clear.

She is sitting with her knees tucked into her chest on your couch, her face resting in the crook of her arms. When she sees you, she darts to her feet, and her eyes meet yours, anticipating your report.

“Well, I saw him.”

“And?” Her small voice is bursting with anticipation. She is as eager for your response as she is afraid of it.

“Tomorrow. He wants me to steal your pills tomorrow.”

“So that means that I…”

“You have to meet up with him. Tomorrow.”

Her eyes flash with fear, and you can hear her breath catch in her throat as she softly gasps. Within seconds though, a wide smile breaks out on her flushed face. She runs up to you and rises on her tip-toes, kissing you as she wraps her arms around your neck. You fall backwards onto the couch, with Vanya on your lap as you land.

“Thank you…” She breaks her lips from yours, moving her arms to where her hands now rest on your shoulders. You can see tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Your lips slowly form the words your mind has latched onto all night, and for the first time yet, you think you truly mean them.

“For you, anything…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the fuck is up my dudes?!? I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! I certainly enjoyed writing it. There was less fluff here this week, but I promise, there is plenty of good stuff to come. And maybe some bad stuff. But definitely some seriously good stuff.
> 
> Anyway, as usual, I appreciate any and all feedback that you have to give. I love reading your comments, they always make my day, and I do try to respond to all of them. On another note, if you want more content from my questionable brain, I do have a Tumblr, @thedaythatwas. Go check me out there for some fun and fresh TUA content. It's wild. I have a good time there. Plenty of Vanya.
> 
> As always, thank you all so much for reading <3<3<3!! See you next week :)


	16. Chapter 16

You wake up the next morning to the soft buzz of a text alert from your phone. You say morning tentatively- because 3 a.m. should in no way, ever be considered the morning- but you digress. The name attached to the alert makes you shudder. Leonard Peabody. You’ll never get used to seeing that name light up your phone screen. You read the message.

“I booked a lesson with V at noon. Should last until 1. Leave no trace. -L”

You hate it that he gave Vanya a codename. “V”. It sounds far too endearing, almost like a pet name. Besides, it’s pointless to hide the nature of the message, given Vanya will be reading it herself in just a few hours- not that Leonard knows that, but you can’t help but be annoyed. It’s Leonard, and there’s nothing about Leonard that doesn’t make your skin crawl.

You internally sigh, cautious to avoid making any noise that could wake the girl lying next to you. You see Vanya’s chest rise and fall, a sure sign of her sleeping state. She’s never quite this peaceful when she’s awake. You slowly sit up. There’s no way that you can go back to sleep after reading that message. You carefully remove your covers, place them gently over Vanya, and walk out of the room, careful to avoid any creaking floorboards.

Once you finish your painstaking journey to the kitchen, you grab a mug and pour yourself a cup of yesterday’s coffee. It’s cold, but caffeine is caffeine, and at 3 o’clock in the morning, you’ll take what you can most easily get. You walk over to the couch, your mind fuzzy, and fall down into its cushions.

Today, Leonard Peabody is going to waltz right back into Vanya’s life, and she is going to let him. No, not just let him, welcome him with open arms. You aren’t doing anything to prevent him from doing it, either. In fact, you had negotiated the time and place that he would. You want to slap yourself. You want to slap Leonard. Honestly, you want to do a whole lot more than slap Leonard. But- Vanya. Vanya wants to do this, and you’d do anything for Vanya. Even… even if it means that she’s going to get hurt? Even if you know that this can’t end well? Your thoughts begin to spiral. You’re so lost in your mind that you don’t notice the girl standing in front of you, wrapped in a blanket, concern in her eyes.

“You couldn’t sleep?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

She sits down next to you, placing her blanket so that it covers both of you. She looks at you as you sit, staring into your coffee.

“You’re still worried about me going to see Leonard, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry… yes. I know that you can protect yourself. I know that you can control your powers. I know that you want to do this, more than anything. I know. But... I don’t trust him. I just can’t.”

“I understand. And it’s good that you don’t trust him. You shouldn’t trust him. I don’t trust him. But, (y/n), if we do this, we don’t need to worry about him ever again. And the apocalypse… I could finally forget about it. And I promise, we are going to kill him. Just, you know, after we get all the information we need.”

“That sounds nice. All of that sounds nice.” You put your coffee mug onto the coffee table and rest your head in Vanya’s lap. As you lay there, Vanya picks up the mug and takes a sip, immediately scrunching her eyes in disgust.

“What is this? Why is your coffee freezing cold?” 

You can’t help but laugh. “Well, I didn’t want to wake you up by making another pot so I just poured some of yesterday’s…”

“Wait, this is a day old too?” She exclaims, spilling some of the drink on your hair in her rush to put it down.

“It’s 3:30. Also, I’m lazy. We’ve established this.” 

“I love you,” she laughs, running her fingers through your coffee splattered hair, “Even after you let me drink freezing-cold, day-old coffee, I still love you. Does that make me crazy?”

“Yes. Really, you should walk out the door right now and never come back. The horror!”

You both laugh, a little bit too hard considering the time. You reach out to grab your TV remote and switch it on. For the rest of the morning, you watch Netflix. Leonard Peabody doesn’t cross your mind, nor do you question even once your decision to support Vanya in getting close to him. After all, how could you do either when Vanya- the smell of her shampoo, the softness of her skin, the lilting sound of her laugh- has so overwhelmed all of your senses? You simply couldn’t. 

When your TV screen eventually asks you if you are still watching, which you definitely still are, you notice that it’s eleven o’clock. Already? Vanya jumps up.

“Fuck! I can’t believe we lost track of time!” She dashes to her room, emerging minutes later wearing her clothes, still buttoning her shirt.

“Here, let me help you with that,” you say, nimbly buttoning the top button of her flannel shirt, “Perfect!”

She looks up at you with wide eyes, a nervous smile on her lips. She’s worried, you can tell.

“Hey, you’re going to do fine. He won’t suspect a thing. Just remember to breathe.”

She nods, taking a deep breath. “What if I panic? What if I get nervous, and he starts to suspect something?”

“Well, I find that when I talk to Leonard, it really helps me to picture his corpse on the floor. Covered in knives. It’s really quite soothing, to be honest.”

“Knives. Got it,” she leans in and pecks your lips softly, “And I’ll be back here by 2”

“I’ll be waiting”

She walks out the door, shooting you one last glance before she shuts it behind her. You sigh. Now, you need to find a way to occupy the next two hours of your time so that you don’t become physically sick with worry. You sit on your couch and attempt to watch TV for about five minutes before you realize that it does nothing to assuage the torrent of thoughts flooding your mind. You shut off the TV. You need to get out of your apartment, or you’ll go crazy.

You walk down the steps of your building and begin the trek towards your favorite cafe. Maybe some coffee, some hot coffee, this time, will silence your fears. Once you reach the cafe, you place your order and find a seat. The waitress delivers your cup of coffee, and you drink it in a series of gulps that leave your throat burning. Just as you are about to get up to order another, a familiar face walks through the door. Well… not exactly walks. As you look to the entrance, you see Number Five simply appear inside of the cafe doors.

Purposefully, he makes his way towards where you are sitting.

“Is the coffee any good here?”

After telling him that the coffee here is, in fact, quite good, he jumps to the line, orders a cup, and jumps back to where you are sitting.

“Can you really just do that in public?”

“I’m assuming you mean use my powers? Yes. Nobody really seems to care. They’re all too busy going about their lives to notice a kid disappearing. It’s convenient for me,” he shakes his head condescendingly at the people in the coffee shop, “That aside- I was just at your apartment and you weren’t there. Obviously, seeing as you’re here. Anyway, I was there to ask you about Vanya’s plans for getting information from Leonard Peabody. Is she here?”

“Actually, she’s with him right now,” you say, noting how Five’s eyes widen at your words.

“So Vanya is currently alone with a serial killer, and neither of you bothered to tell any of us where she is? Please tell me that she knows what her plan is.”

You curse your own oversight. This is the second time you’ve forgotten to tell the Hargreeves siblings information concerning their sister, the first time being her whereabouts the morning after the almost-apocalypse, and both times, you’d forgotten that you’d forgot until one of them sought you out. You really need to be better about telling them things.

“I’m sorry, I should have told you. But, she does know what she’s doing. We’ve got a plan.” You tell him your plan: Leonard is “distracting” Vanya, allowing them to make contact, while you are supposedly destroying her pills.

“That’s not a plan.”

“What do you mean that’s not a plan? It seems like a plan to me!”

“No, all you’ve done is to arrange how Vanya will meet Leonard. Granted, he trusts you now, at least tentatively, but you still have no strategy for getting information from Leonard, or any idea what you are going after this single interaction. Like I said: not a plan.”

“Well…” he has a point. “We sort of figured that once Leonard got close to Vanya, he would start trying to manipulate her. Then we would learn more about his angle, his endgame. We could see if it’s the same one he had in the alternate timeline.”

Five slaps his face against the palm of his hand.

“So your plan is to let Vanya potentially be manipulated until you learn what Leonard is doing now… not what he’s been doing for the past six months?”

Now, he really has a point. You need a more concrete plan, or all of this is for nothing.

“So, Five, what should we do?” You have a feeling that he’s been waiting to say his plan since the beginning of this conversation.

“While Leonard thinks that he is distracting Vanya for you, you should really be using Vanya to distract Leonard. Whenever Leonard is with Vanya, you break into his house, look around, and find all of the information that we need. Then, we kill him. Simple as that.” A waitress sets down a cup of coffee, black, in front of Five, and he takes a long sip.

“You know where Leonard Peabody lives?”

“Of course I do. Any other questions?”

“Actually, no. That’s a solid plan. Um… would you or your siblings, by chance, want to break into Leonard’s house with me? There are probably warning signs that you would recognize that I wouldn’t, given your past experience with Peabody.”

“Tell me when you plan on doing it and I’ll be there. I’m sure that Allison would want to go with you too. Do they do to-go here?” 

You nod, and Five jumps back into the line, orders his coffee, and jumps back to your table.

“One last thing. When you prevented the apocalypse, there were a surprising lack of people trying to shoot you.”

“What?!” His statement takes you completely by surprise.

“I used to work for an organization called the Commission. They protect the space time continuum. One of the things that they are charged with protecting is the apocalypse. And yet, the night you stopped it, not a single Commission agent was there to stop you. To me, this means one of two things. Either we prevented the apocalypse permanently when we created this timeline, which is doubtful, or the Commission knows that the apocalypse is still going to happen, and everything is going as planned so that it does. We need to assume the later. Keep me updated. If anybody tries to kill you, you’re doing something right.” You look at him, dumbstruck, a million questions on your lips. Before you can ask any of them, a barista calls his name, and Five jumps to the counter, picks up his to-go coffee, and jumps out of the cafe as quickly as he came.

You sit alone at your table, now with significantly more worries than you had when you first sat down. You look at your watch, and see that it reads 2 o’clock. Finally! Vanya should be back at your apartment by now. You hurry out of the restaurant and down the street, your pace unmatched by those you pass. You bound up the steps of your apartment building two at a time, and when you reach the door to your apartment, you turn your key in the lock faster than you thought to be humanly possible. You step inside. Vanya isn’t there. You look in your bedroom- she isn’t there either. You check every room, each to no avail. She isn’t here. It’s 2 o’clock and she isn’t here.

You sink to your knees on the living room floor, your head swarming, running through so many scenarios that you can’t think through a single one coherently. The only thought that blares above them all is that Vanya isn’t here, which means that she must still be with Leonard.

In spite of your mental numbness, you feel the warm weight of a tear on your cheek. You hadn’t noticed that you were crying, but it is evident that you are. Suddenly the collar of your shirt is wet, and your quivering lips are coated in the salty residue of tears. The room feels like it’s spinning around you. Your head is filled with cotton, and your tongue is heavier than lead. She isn’t here. Oh fuck, she isn’t here!

You can only faintly hear the sound of the hinges of your door creak behind you, and the sound of feet as they run towards where you kneel on the floor. You do feel, though, when her arms wrap around you. Your head falls onto her shoulder, but your tears don’t stop flowing. In fact, your sobbing intensifies. Vanya is here. Thank god, she’s here. She runs her fingers through your hair, pulling you closer to her. You bury your face into her chest. It doesn’t matter that you can breathe- the only thing that matters is that Vanya is here with you, and that you can prove it to yourself.

Soon, your tears stop falling, and you feel your breathing begin to stabilize. With a shaky breath, you finally pull away from Vanya. Still, your hands remain clasped firmly around her elbows- you can’t let go of her entirely.

“When I got I home, you weren’t here… and I thought… I thought a lot of things.”

“It’s ok,” she brushes a strand of your hair behind your ear with a small smile, “Leonard just asked if he could buy me a coffee after the violin lesson, and I thought that I should let him. I’m okay. I promise.”

You fall back into her arms, breathing her in, savoring the warmth of her arms as they envelope you. You want to sink into her, you want her to never let you go.

“Vanya… this is going to be really hard.”

“I know.”

Of course she knows! She just spent two and a half hours with a man she despises! You sit up and look at Vanya. You hadn’t noticed it before, but her face is pale, and her fingers are shaking.

“How was the lesson? Are you doing okay?” Your hand comes to rest on her knee, and she places her hand on top of yours, squeezing it gently. 

“I’ll be okay soon. After we have what we need. After we kill him.”

You bring your other hand up and rest it behind Vanya’s neck. You lean in to kiss her, softly, but your lips don’t part from hers. You close your eyes.

“I love you. And nothing Leonard Peabody can do will ever change that,” you whisper, your face not even centimeters away from hers.

She breathes her response. “I know. But let’s not let him try. We’ll kill the bastard.”

Her lips lock onto yours, and for just a moment, the two of you are invincible.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, my dudes! The plot thickens! Leonard has met Vanya, you still don't know whether you support that, and Five has just told you that *maybe* the apocalypse is still going to happen after all. YIKES! Things are escalating, and I hope that you guys are going to like where they end up!
> 
> Anyway, I really hope that you enjoyed the chapter!! As always, I appreciate any feedback you have to give. Also, if you just love this story, or are just starving for some TUA related content, come check out my Tumblr, @thedaythatwas. Also, if you want to message me there- seriously, do it. I'd seriously love to talk to y'all but I am far, far too awkward to initiate a conversation. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and lots of love to all of you! Go gain that grain this week! <3<3<3


	17. Chapter 17

Weeks have passed since the first time Vanya met up with Leonard. Two weeks to be exact, although to you, it feels more like two centuries. Every day for two weeks, Vanya has gone to meet up with Leonard for violin lessons, and every day for two weeks, you’ve kissed her goodbye with a reassuring smile. Every day for two weeks, you’ve spent the hours following that kiss in a state of mind-numbing, skin-crawling anxiety. And every day for two weeks, you’ve held Vanya tightly in your arms as soon as she walked back through your door, careful to ensure that no tears give away the state you’ve been in since she left. The world hasn’t stopped, either, even for the likes of Leonard Peabody. You still have orchestra rehearsals to attend, students to tutor, and a life to live. It’s been absolutely exhausting to be you.

Today, though, is going to be different. Today is the day that you are finally going to make some progress towards ending this hell. As you kiss Vanya goodbye, your smile is genuine, and as even as she leaves, it stays on your face. Today is the day that you are going to break into Leonard Peabody’s house.

If it were up to you, you would have done this two weeks ago. Unfortunately, it isn’t up to you. Today is the first day that Five, Diego, and Allison can come with you, and despite your slight annoyance that you’ve had to wait so long for this day, you are nearly giddy with the thought of what you are soon to do. You might even break a few things (though you would never voice these desires to Five).

Your mood is light as you hail a taxi. When you finally get one’s attention, you jubilantly tell the driver your desired address, down to the street number, in a sing-song voice, earning you an eye-roll from the man. As you leave the city and enter Bricktown, you practically glow with happiness. When the cabby pulls up to the curb of Leonard’s house, you shove a few crumpled bills into his hand and jump out of the car. As you look up at the imposing facade of Leonard’s aggressively suburban house- the reality of your situation hits you. You are here to, quite literally, look for skeletons in Leonard’s closet. In under an hour, you are going to find out whether the plot that you and Vanya have conceived of has resulted in anybody’s recent murder- which is quite plausible, and not news which you necessarilly want to deliver to Vanya. Just as your bright smile is beginning to fade from your face, you see Vanya’s siblings standing, only partially concealed, behind one of Leonard’s bushes.

You can’t help but laugh, despite your morbid thoughts. “You do realize that that bush isn’t going to fool Leonard, you know, if he were to come home? Right?”

Five scowls at you. “Well, as long as you did your job, we shouldn’t need to worry about him. We just need to avoid any unwanted witnesses. Pedestrians.”

“Well,” you respond, “That isn’t really going to fool any pedestrians either…”

Diego rolls his eyes at both of you. “Can we just break into this place already? This bastard is with Vanya right now, and the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can kill him.”

You nod. “You know what? I completely agree,” you walk up the cement path to Leonard’s front door, grabbing a rock from the edge of his lawn as you do. When you’re standing less than a foot away from his front door (a simple, wooden thing, its top half prominently, rather conveniently, featuring a glass window), you throw the rock full force into it, shattering the window.

You can see a vein throbbing in the middle of Five’s forehead. “Why the hell did you do that? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

You shrug. “Honestly, that just felt really, really fucking good. Besides,” you say, reaching through the shattered glass to unlock Leonard’s front door, “Now, I can do that!”

You see Diego nodding slowly through your peripheral vision. “She’s got the right idea. Except, I would probably have just jumped through that glass. Who needs a rock?”

“Oh yes, Diego,” you laugh, “Real men just love getting glass and cuts all over their body when they’re breaking and entering.” You realize, looking down, that you’re somewhat of a hypocrite. Blood is dripping down your arm from a series of cuts on your hand, not to mention the myriad of glass shards, only a hair’s breadth in diameter, clinging to your jeans. 

Allison sighs at both of you, pulling a lint roller and a roll of bandages out of her large purse. “This is why I always come prepared,” she hands you the lint roller and begins to bandage your wounded hand, “I grew up with him. Now, that lint roller should get most of the glass off of you. Unfortunately, I speak from experience.”

While you painstakingly lint-roll the glass off of your pants, Allison twists the doorknob and swings the door open. The four of you proceed into Leonard’s entryway cautiously, careful to avoid the larger shards of glass littering the floor. Once the four of you are inside, Allison carefully shuts the door. 

Five assumes a tone of authority as he addresses the group. “We all remember our last time here, correct?” He waits for the rest of the group to nod before continuing, “If there is anything incriminating here, it will be in the attic, so we should check there first.”

You quickly interject. “Vanya told me that she found out the truth about Leonard the first time around when she looked through his bag. If he has any bags lying around, we should search them. Also, we can’t rule out any other hiding spots either. Bedside tables, beneath mattresses… we can’t rule out anything.” The others must be able to sense the concern dripping from your voice, because Five concedes his role as leader for just a moment, nodding his agreement with you.

Allison places her hand on your shoulder. “We aren’t going to leave this house until we’ve checked every single one of his hiding places. We’re going to get him, have no doubt about that.”

While the others begin to search through the downstairs, you seek out the staircase. You climb it step by step, hyper aware that you are walking a path that Leonard has walked countless times before. One that Vanya has walked with Leonard, in another timeline, of course, but in a timeline when she loved him… one where she thought that she loved him, anyway. You aren’t even upstairs and you are already feeling far too many emotions. You walk into his bedroom. You search through his bedside table. Nothing suspicious there. You go to turn on his lamp. To your surprise, a key on a small keychain falls out of the lampshade. Besides the key, attached to the ring is a fob engraved with an umbrella insignia. 

You walk over to the top of the staircase. “Hey guys! I think I found something!”

You hear the sound of feet rushing up the staircase as you go back into Leonard’s room. You look under his bed, and sure enough, just as you had suspected, a locked box is hidden in his bed frame.

You hold out the box and the tiny key. Diego shakes his head. “Well, he’s as much of a creep now as he was six months ago, I can tell you that much.”

Five takes the key from you and slides it into the rectangular, metal box. It turns, and you wait in apprehension as Five lifts its lid, eliciting a creak from its tired hinges. Inside the box is a brown journal.

You look at the book, your voice catching as you try to voice your thoughts. “Is.. is t-that...?”

Although it goes unspoken, everyone knows the question on your lips. You want to know if this book is Reginald’s journal.

Allison picks it up, examining it. “No. The binding is different. I would know dad’s journal anywhere, and this isn’t it.”

Diego roughly grabs the journal from Allison’s hands, flipping through the pages with his fingertips. “Then what the hell is this?”

You hold your hand out towards Diego. “I don’t think we have time to ask. Give it to me and I’ll take some pictures. We can go through them later,” he hands you the book, and you take out your phone, taking pictures of the pages of the journal as fast as your camera can focus, “I think we should go check the attic now.”

Allison nods her agreement. You had been putting this off for as long as possible, but you know that any search of Leonard’s house wouldn’t be complete without checking his attic. 

The group walks back into the hallway, and Diego locates the door to the attic. He pulls down the ladder and stands idly beside it, waiting for one of you to climb up. Allison goes first. You follow suit. What you see in the dimly lit room at the top of the ladder makes your blood run cold.

The first thing that you see are the portraits of Vanya’s siblings tacked up across the walls. How could you miss them? No image is in tact: eyes are gouged out, faces are scribbled over, and scorch marks scar entire images. Umbrella Academy paraphernalia covers every surface, and in stark contrast to the destroyed likenesses covering the walls, each item of merchandise is kept in pristine condition. However, what is most unsettling to you is a collage that takes up only a small corner of the dimly lit room. It is composed entirely of pictures of Vanya. Centrally located is a snippet of Vanya’s face taken from a newspaper advertisement for your orchestra- something that anybody could access. As the images radiate outward, however, chills run down your spine. There is a picture of Vanya walking down the street, carrying her violin, taken from a balcony. You can see a picture of you sitting with Vanya at your favorite table at the cafe, both of you dressed in your concert suits, laughing over a cup of coffee. The worst, though, is a picture hidden in the corner of the collage: you and Vanya sitting on the couch in your apartment, her lips pressed onto yours. A moment, you are sure, that you thought was your own. Apparently, it was Leonard’s too. 

Allison walks up to the collage, brushing her fingers over the glossy images of her sister. “This is new. This is very new.” You can hear her voice waver, and you aren’t sure if it’s from anger or from fear. All you know is that the longer you look at the wall, the more nauseated you become. You look away from the wall, trying to see anything other than those pictures of Vanya and you. At that moment, you see the body.

More accurately, you see the body bag. You see a human form, albeit one encased in a black tarp, tightly secured with neat, horizontal bands of silver duct tape. You were expecting something like this, but it doesn’t stop the silent scream from rising in your throat.

Five, noticing as your face goes blank, lifts one edge of the tarp. “Nobody we know. The body is in rigor mortis. They were killed less than two days ago.”

You catch your breath and try your best to form words, even though words don’t seem to be coming. “Why? Why them?”

Five tilts his head. “I suppose we’ll know as soon as we go through that journal. That will have to wait though. We’ve been here for too long.”

You file out of the attic, down the stairs, and out of the broken door onto the sidewalk. There, you part ways with the Hargreeves siblings.

Before you get into your cab, Five solemnly addresses you. “Tomorrow, bring me those journal pages. Printed. We need to go through them thoroughly before we can take any action.”

You nod, swinging open the cab door. You sit on the edge of your seat as you give directions to your driver. As the single story buildings of Bricktown fade into the skyline of the city, you lose yourself in thought. It’s been only two days since Leonard last killed. He can see into your apartment, and it is more than likely that he follows you when you are with Vanya. Can he hear you? That single question is what determines whether, at this very moment, Vanya is safe or not. You have no way of knowing. You cannot get to your apartment fast enough.

When the cab driver pulls up at your curb, you jump out of the car, almost forgetting to pay your fare, before bounding up your apartment steps. You open the door. Please... let her be there… let her be ok…

She’s there. She’s ok. She’s sitting on the couch, curled up in a blanket, and she smiles when she sees you walk in. You run over to the couch, practically falling onto Vanya. Your legs straddle either side of the blanket she has pulled over her lap. She pulls your face closer to yours and kisses you deeply, and you reciprocate completely. In your mind, in that attic, you had lost her, but here she is. You don’t want to let go. You move your lips to her neck, softly biting the skin just below her ear.

It only takes a minute for you to say what you need to say. “Don’t react. We need to go to a park, now.”

Then, your lips move back to hers. Nothing is amiss. Everything is absolutely fine. At least, you hope that it looks that way from through your window.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up my dudes? Happy almost-kinda-fall! First things first, I'm going to address my absence. For the past two weeks, school hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. Coincidentally, my mind decided to be an entire mess at the exact same time. I am so sorry that it took this long to update. Hopefully things are going to settle down soon, so I expect to be updating again next week for you guys :)
> 
> Anyway! I hope that you enjoyed this update!! I know that there's been a lot of plot advancement lately, at the expense of some fluff. If you've been missing the fluff, you're in luck, because I've got a special something planned for Vanya's birthday :)
> 
> If you want to have a slightly more concerning glimpse into my gay disaster mind, consider following me on tumblr (@thedaythatwas). There, you get to see me post questionable TUA memes and lament my depressing existence! Good times!! Thank you all for reading! Lots of love to all of you!! <3<3<3


	18. Chapter 18

You slowly pull away from Vanya, though your face remains only inches away from hers. You see her nod her head, ever so slightly. You think that you can see a glint of fear deep within her eyes, but she hides it well. You press your lips onto her forehead, barely mouthing the words “Let’s go” as you do. Evidently, she understands, as she stands up immediately and grabs her coat.

“It’s so beautiful outside! We should go to the park, you know, to watch the sunset,” she shoots a smile back at you as she speaks. It’s unsettling how easily Vanya is hiding her discomfort. You could feel her heartbeat pounding fast against yours only moments ago, and yet, had you not have felt it yourself, you wouldn’t have believed her to be even remotely uneasy.

You respond, mustering as much courage as you can to stop your voice from wavering. “Oh, we should! Let me just put on my coat!”

Vanya smiles, grabbing her keys as she speaks. “Hurry or we’ll miss it!”

You couldn’t be fast enough as you don your coat and grab the keys to your apartment. As you turn to walk out the door, you look back at the wide open window. Would it be suspicious to close the curtains? Maybe, but not so suspicious that the action’s detriments would outweigh the comfort it would bring you. You decide to leave them open regardless. It’s better not to take too many chances.

The park that you intend on walking to is only a few minutes walk from your apartment, and you pass your time in transit by holding Vanya’s hand in yours, swinging it as you walk down the street. You never used to like walks like this, but with Vanya walking by you, they have become one of your favorite past times as of late. When you arrive at the park, the entire sky is tinged with gold. You run out into the center of one of its many grassy fields, turning as you do to watch Vanya follow you. As the two of you collapse into the soft, green blanket of earth beneath you, you could almost forget the reason you came here. Unfortunately, you haven’t entirely. Fortunately, you can finally tell Vanya. That will make everything better.

You are surrounded by yards and yards of empty space on every side of where you’re sitting. You don’t need to worry about -Leonard… Harold… Fuck it! Your stalker- overhearing your discussion. If he really is lurking somewhere in this park, which is plausible, all he would see is the two of you talking and watching the sunset together. Perfectly normal.

You turn to look at the girl laying in the grass next to you. You begin to speak, expecting words to tumble out in a cascade of incomprehensible fragments. Strangely enough, you are coherent.

“So, you know that I was going to break into Leonard’s house today, right? Well, I did, and I found some pretty… unsettling things. Vanya, he’s been taking pictures of us. At the cafe, in our apartment- everywhere. He’s been stalking us. I don’t know if he can hear us when we’re talking, or if all he can do is see us… Vanya, I’m really, really scared…” You bury your face in her chest. You can feel her arms wrap around your shoulders as you lie in the grass. Your world smells like dandelions, tree bark, and her, filling your nostrils with an intoxicating sense of calm.

She rubs your shoulders, abruptly halting the shudders which had been running down your spine. Vanya speaks, her voice barely above a whisper, inches away from your ear. “Hey… it’s going to be ok. Really. We knew that he would do something like this. It’s horrible… but we’re going to get through this. Remember, just like you told me: picture his corpse filled with knives, and suddenly, it doesn’t seem quite so bad,” at that, you let out a small laugh. She’s right. Of course she’s right. Yes, this is incredibly violating, but then again, what about this business with Leonard hasn’t been? You feel your rationality coming back to you.

You take a few deep breaths before responding. “You’re right. You’re so right. This is… normal. I guess it’s our normal. In any case, we need to pretend like everything is.”

She smiles back at you. “Well, before we go back to doing that, can we stay here for a minute? Watch the sunset, for real?”

You kiss her. “Of course we can. There’s nothing else in the world that I would rather do.” You roll back onto your back, allowing yourself to be enveloped in blades of grass and Vanya’s arms. As you rest your head on her neck, you can feel your breathing falling into synch with hers. The only sound that you can hear is the beating of her heart, and all you can see is the sky, brilliantly illuminated in hues of magenta, rusted orange, and lingering gold. The sun slips below the horizon, and you watch it go. Every inch it disappears below the horizon brings you a minute closer to the end of this moment. You don’t want it to end… but damn it, you won’t think about it ending until it’s over. You’re here now- so is Vanya, so is the sunset.

As the last slivers of light slip below the horizon, you turn to face Vanya.

“So,” you say, biting your lip to suppress a grin, “I have sort of a crazy idea…”

Vanya laughs. “Crazy how?”

You rise to your knees, looking down at Vanya laying in the grass. “Well, I was just thinking about how we met literally just after your birthday. And I don’t know... it seems pretty normal to celebrate birthdays to me… What do you say? Want to pretend like it’s your birthday tonight?”

Vanya laughs and shakes her head as she looks up to where you’re kneeling, grinning ear to ear. “What does that even mean? I mean...  I’m in. I think.”

You offer Vanya a hand to stand up. “It means… well I’m not exactly sure what it means yet, but we’re going to have fun, I can promise you that much!”

You walk with Vanya hand in hand to the street and hail a cab. When one finally pulls to the curb for you, you slip in. 

The driver asks where you want to go, and after a moment’s hesitation, you respond. “I think… the park on 7th street. You know, the one with the ice skating rink?”

When you arrive at the park, you rent a pair of ice skates for you and for Vanya. You bring the odd footwear to a bench where Vanya sits waiting for you.

She laughs when she sees you coming. “You know, I am definitely going to fall. A lot.”

You respond, your voice inhibited equally by laughter. “Me too. Seriously. But it’s going to be fun!”

The two of you lace up your skates side by side on the bench. Once the skates are secured and the laces are tightened, you need to make the journey across the cement separating you from the rink. Vanya uses your arm, and you use her shoulder, to maintain your balance. When you finally make it to the ice, you push off the wall. Vanya glides into the center of the track with ease. You, on the other hand, eat ice. As your hands and knees crash into the rink floor, Vanya stifles a laugh and skates back to you.

She offers you her hand. “Need some help?”

You sigh. “You have no idea.”

She helps to pull you up, giving you a burst of momentum. Just a burst, though, because seconds later, you fall again, this time, pulling Vanya down with you. 

She laughs as she brushes ice from the palms of her hands. You are absolutely mortified. “I’m so sorry!” you exclaim, brushing ice from Vanya’s jacket, “I honestly didn’t know that my sense of balance was this bad!”

She laughs, putting her hand on your shoulder, an action equally intended to comfort you as to help her stand. “We just need some practice. Here, I’ll stay with you from now on.” She offers you her hand again, and rather than pushing you forward, she stands next to you, showing you how to transfer your weight from skate to skate to push off of the ice. Soon, you’re gliding in rhythm with her, your skates scraping the ice in unison. Your faces are flushed with cold, but it is completely bearable with her arm entertwined in yours. 

When your time is up on your rental skates, you skate back to the rink entrance and walk back to the bench where you had put on your skates. You return the skates to the kiosk you had rented them from. As you return your skates, you see a cupcake in the display case window of the rink’s snack bar. Perfect.

You return to Vanya, your shoes and a cupcake in hand. As you approach her, you hold out the tiny, blue frosted confection in your hands. “Well, if we’re treating today as your birthday, then we need to have some cake to celebrate,” she laughs, but you continue, “We don’t have any candles, so I guess you just need to imagine that we do.”

With a wide-eyed smile, Vanya accepts the cake. She blows the frosting, where a candle might be, before taking a bite out of the side of the cake.

You slide closer to where Vanya sits on the bench. “What did you wish for?”

Vanya laughs in response. “You know that I can’t tell you that! Then it won’t come true!”

You whisper into Vanya’s ear. “Really? You won’t even give me a hint?”

She pecks you lightly on the lips. “Well… what I wished for is already right here with me.”

You remember Vanya laying in the grass, watching the sunset, earlier today. You remember her helping you up when you fell on your ice skates, time after time. You can see the way that her lips turn up ever so slightly when she smiles, and you can hear her laugh- the laugh that melts your heart, the laugh that can turn your brain to mush when you realize that you’re the lucky one who causes it. You feel her kiss lingering on your lips, and the pressure of her head when it rests on your neck, and of her arms when she wraps them around you. You couldn’t agree more: everything that you could ever wish for is already right here in front of you.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my dudes! HAPPY HARGREEVES DAY!! I hope that you enjoyed this update. Lots of fluff. Lots. of. Fluff. I don't think that I need to say more.
> 
> Anyway, I hope that you liked this chapter. I always appreciate your feedback, so if you would like to leave some, feel free to do so down below! Also, if you like my content (wild, btw) then feel free to follow my tumblr, @thedaythatwas. It's... a time.
> 
> I hope that you all have a wonderful week and enjoy the beginnings of sweater weather. We're gonna fucking thrive this October! Lots of love to all of you <3


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